Women's suffrage; a short history of a great movement

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THE

PEOPLE'S
BOOKS

WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE

WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE

A SHORT HISTORY OF A
GREAT MOVEMENT

BY MILLICENT GARRETT
FAWCETT, LL.D.

tf"
PRESIDENT OF THE NATIONAL UNION OF WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE SOCIETIES

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LONDON: T. C. & E. C. JACK

67 LONG ACRE, W.C., AND EDINBURGH
NEW YORK: THE DODGE PUBLISHING CO.

It is not to be thought of that the flood

Of British freedom, which to the open sea

Of the world's praise, from dark antiquity

Hath flowed "with pomp of waters unwithstood "

Road by which all might come and go that would,

And bear out freights of worth to foreign lands ;

That this most famous stream in bogs and sands

Should perish, and to evil and to good

Be lost for ever. In our halls is hung

Armoury of the invincible knights of old :

We must be free or die, who speak the tongue

That Shakespeare spake the laith and morals hold

Which Milton held. In everything we're sprung

Of earth's first blood, have titles manifold.

W. WORDSWORTH.

WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE

CHAPTER I
THE BEGINNINGS

WE suffragists have no cause to be ashamed of the
founders of our movement

" In everything we're sprung
Of earth's first blood, have titles manifold."

Mary Wollstonecraft x started the demand of women
for political liberty in England, Condorcet in France, 2
and the heroic group of anti-slavery agitators in the
United States. It is true that Horace Walpole called
Mary Wollstonecraft "a hyena in petticoats." But
this proves nothing except his profound ignorance of
her character and aims. Have we not in our own time
heard the ladies who first joined the Primrose League
described by an excited politician as " filthy witches " ?
The epithet of course was as totally removed from any
relation to the facts as that which Horace Walpole
applied to Mary Wollstonecraft. William Godwin's
touching memoir of his wife, Mr. Kegan Paul's William
Godwin: his Friends and Contemporaries, and Mrs.
PennelTs Biography show Mary Wollstonecraft as a
woman of exceptionally pure and exalted character.

1 Vindication of the Rights of Women, published in 1792.

2 See Le vote des Femmes, pp. 16-22, par Ferdinand Buisson,
De"pnt de la Seine et President de la Commission du Suffrage Uni-
verselle. Condorcet had a predecessor in Mademoiselle Jars de
Gournay, the friend of Montaigne. See Miss E. Sichel's Michel de
Montaigne, p. 137.

5

6 WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE

Her sharp wits had been sharpened by every sort of
personal misfortune ; they enabled her to pierce through
all shams and pretences, but they never caused her to
lower her high sense of duty ; they never embittered
her or caused her to waver in her allegiance to the
pieties of domestic life. Her husband wrote of her
soon after her death, " She was a worshipper of domestic
life." If there is anything in appearance, her face
in the picture in the National Portrait Gallery speaks
for her. Southey wrote of her, that of all the lions of
the day whom he had seen "her face was the best,
infinitely the best."

The torch which was lighted by Mary Wollstonecraft
was never afterwards extinguished ; there are glimpses
of its light in the poems of her son-in-law Shelley.
The frequent references to the principle of equality
between men and women in the " Revolt of Islam" wiU
occur to every reader.

In 1810 Sydney Smith, in the Edinburgh Review, wrote
one of the most brilliant and witty articles which even
he ever penned in defence of an extension of the means
of a sound education to women.

In 1813 Mrs. Elizabeth Fry began to visit prisoners
in Newgate, and shocked those who, citing the parrot
cry " woman's place is home," thought a good woman
had no duties outside its walls. She had children of
her own, but this did not shut her heart to the wretched
waifs for whom she founded a school in prison. A
little after this England began to be stirred by the
agitation which resulted in the passing of the Reform
Bill of 1832. It is one of life's little ironies that James
Mill, the founder of the Philosophical Radicals, and
the father of John Stuart Mill, who laid the foundation
of the modern suffrage movement, was among those
vrho, in the early nineteenth century, justified the ex-
clusion of women from all political rights. In an Essay
on " Government " published in 1823 as an appendix
to the fifth edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, he
dismissed in a sentence all claim of women to share in
the benefits and protection of representative govern-

THE BEGINNINGS 7

ment, stating that their interests were sufficiently
protected by the enfranchisement of their husbands
and fathers. It is true that this did not pass un-
challenged ; a book in reply was published (1825) by
William Thomson. This book had a preface by Mrs.
Wheeler, at whose instigation it was written. 1

The Reform Movement was agitating the whole
country at this period, and political excitement led to
political riots, burning of buildings, and general orgies
of massacre and destruction. The Government of the
day had their share in the blunders and stupidities
which led to these crimes, and in none were these
qualities more conspicuous than in the riot at Manchester,
which came to be known as the Peterloo Massacre in
August 1819, in which six people were killed and about
thirty seriously injured.

What connects it with the subject of these pages has
already been hinted at. Women as well as men had
been ridden down by the cavalry ; they were present
at the meeting not merely as spectators, but as taking
an active part in the Reform Movement. A picture
of the Peterloo Massacre, now in the Manchester Reform
Club, is dedicated to " Henry Hunt, Esq., the chairman of
the meeting and to the Female Reformers of Manchester
and the adjacent towns who were exposed to and
suffered from the wanton and furious attack made
on them by that brutal armed force, the Manchester
and Cheshire Yeomanry Cavalry." The, picture repre-
sents women in every part of the fray, and certainly
taking their share in its horrors. In the many de-
scriptions of the event, no word of reprobation has
come to my notice of the women who were taking part
in the meeting ; they were neither " hyenas " nor
" witches," but patriotic women helping their husbands

1 Helen Blackburn's Record of Women's Suffrage, also Women in
English Life, by Miss Georgina Hill. Mrs. Wheeler's daughter
Rosina, married Mr. Lytton Bulwer, afterwards the first Lord
Lytton. The present Earl of Lytton is thus the great-grandson of
the lady who prompted the reply to James Mill's article referred
to in tiie text.

8 WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE

and brothers to obtain political liberty ; in a word, they
were working for men and not for themselves, and this
made an immense difference in the judgment meted
out to them. However, it is quite clear that even as
long ago as 1819 the notion that women have nothing
to do with politics was in practice rejected by the
political common-sense of Englishmen. No one doubted
that women were, and ought to be, deeply interested in
what concerned the political well-being of their country.
Some political antiquarians in this country have
expressed their conviction that in early times when
the institution of feudalism was the strongest political
force in England, women exercised electoral rights in
those cases where they were entitled as landowners
or as freewomen of certain towns to do so. 1 This
view has been combated by other authorities, and has
not been accepted in the law courts, where special
emphasis has been laid on the fact that no authentic
case of a woman having actually cast a vote, as of right,
in a Parliamentary election can be produced. The
claim that in ancient times women did exercise the
franchise, whether capable of being established or not,
certainly does not deserve to be dismissed as in itself
absurd and incredible. I believe it has been called by
some anti-suffragists " an impudent imposture," in
the most approved style of the " what-I-know-not-is-
not-knowledge " pedant. Whatever it may be, it is not
this. In a book published in 191 1, 2 there is a passage
which goes far to prove that even as late as 1807 the
right of women possessing the necessary legal qualifica-
tion to vote in Parliamentary elections was recognised
as being in existence. One of the Spencer Stanhopes
was a candidate during the general election of 1807,

1 This view has also been supported in France, see Le vote des
Femmes, by Ferdinand Buisson, for evidence of women having in
ancient times voted and sat in the Parlements of France. Taine
also mentions the Countess of Perigord sitting in the Etats of
her province prior to the Revolution (Les Origines de la Franct
Contemporaire, par H. Taine, vol. i. p. 104).

2 Annals of a Yorkshire House, vol. ii. p. 319.

THE BEGINNINGS 9

and Mrs. Spencer Stanhope writes to her son, John,
that her husband's party was so certain of success that
they had announced that their women folk need not
vote. " Your father was at Wakefield canvassing
yesterday. . . . They determined not to admit the
ladies to vote, which is extraordinary and very hard,
considering how few privileges we poor females have.
Should it come to a very close struggle, I daresay they
will then call upon the ladies, and in that case every
self-respecting woman should most certainly refuse
her assistance."

The contention is that the Reform Act of 1832, by
substituting the words " male person " in lieu of the
word " man " in the earlier Acts, first placed upon the
women of this country the burden of a statutory dis-
ability. This process, it is argued, was repeated in
the Municipal Corporation Act of 1835, and is the
reason why the admission of women to the municipal
franchise in 1870 is spoken of in many of our suffrage
publications as the "Restoration" of the municipal
suffrage to women. The point appears more of anti-
quarian than of practical interest. If substantiated,
it only illustrates anew the fact that under feudalism,
and as long as feudalism survived, property rather than
human beings had a special claim to representation,
but it assumed a larger degree of importance from
what followed in 1850 and 1868.

In 1850 Lord Brougham's Act was passed, which
enacted that in all Acts of Parliament " words importing
the masculine gender shall be deemed to include females
unless the contrary is expressly provided." In the
Reform Bill of 1867 the words " male person " were
abandoned, and the word " man " was substituted,
and many lawyers and others believed that under Lord
Brougham's Act of 1850 women were thereby en-
franchised. Under this belief, the reasons for which
were set forth by Mr. Chisholm Anstey, barrister and
ex-M.R, in two legal pamphlets published, one just
before and one just after the passing of the Reform
Bill of 1867, a large number of women rate-payers

10 WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE

claimed before the revising barristers in 1868 to be
placed upon the Parliamentary register. Under the
able leadership of Miss Lydia Becker 5346 women
householders of Manchester made this claim, 1341 in
Salford, 857 in Broughton and Pendleton, 1 lady in
S.E. Lancashire, a county constituency, 239 in Edin-
burgh, and a few in other parts of Scotland. The
revising barristers in most of these cases declined to
place the women's names on the register ; and in order
to get a legal decision, four cases were selected and
argued before the Court of Common Pleas on November
7, 1868. The judges were the Lord Chief Justice
Bovill, with the Justices Willes, Keating, and Byles.
Sir John (afterwards Lord) Coleridge, and Dr. Pankhurst
were counsel for the appellants. The case (technically
known as Chorlton v. Lings) was given against the
women, on the express ground that although the word
" man " in an Act of Parliament must be held to include
women, " this did not apply to the privileges granted by
the State" This judgment, therefore, established as
law that " the same words in the same Act of Parlia-
ment shall for the purpose of voting apply to men only,
but for the purpose of taxation shall include women." x
Some women's names had been accepted by revising
barristers, and were already upon the register. A
question was raised whether they could remain there.
The barrister in charge of this case, Mr. A. Russell, Q.C.,
argued that when once the names were upon the register,
if they had not been objected to they must remain ;
one of the judges thereupon remarked that if this were
so there would be no power to remove the name of a
dog or a horse from the register if once it had been in-
scribed upon it. This was eloquent of the political
status of women, identifying it by implication with
that of the domestic animals. The Times, in anticipa-
tion of the Chorlton v. Lings case coming on for hearing,
had an article on November 3, 1868, in which it said :
" If one supposes it ever was the intention of the legis-

1 Keport of the Manchester National Society for Women's
Suffrage, 1869.

THE BEGINNINGS 11

lature to give women a vote, and if they do get it, it
will be by a sort of accident, in itself objectionable,
though, in its practical consequences, perhaps harmless
enough. On the other hand, if they are refused, the
nation will, no doubt, be formally and in the light of day
committing itself, through its judicial tribunal, to the
dangerous doctrine that representation need not go along
with taxation" With the decision in Chorlton v. Lings,
the last chance of women getting the suffrage by " a
sort of accident" vanishes, and very few of us can
now regret it, for the long struggle to obtain suffrage
has been a great education for women, not only politi-
cally, but also in courage, perseverance, endurance, and
comradeship with each other.

If the nineteenth century was a time of education for
women, it was no less a time of education for men.
We have not yet arrived at an equal moral standard
for men and women, but we have travelled a long w T ay
on the road leading to it. A George I. openly sur-
rounding himself with mistresses, and shutting up his
wife for life in a fortress for levity of behaviour ; a
George IV. who measured with similar inequality his
own and his wife's connubial transgressions, would not
be tolerated in the England of the twentieth century.
The awakening of women to a sense of their wrongs
before the law was a leading feature of the women's
movement in the early nineteenth century. The Hon.
Mrs. Norton, the beautiful and gifted daughter of Tom
Sheridan, a reigning toast, a society beauty, and with
literary accomplishments sufficient to secure her an
independent income from her pen, was subjected to
every sort of humiliation and anguish as a wife and
mother which the mean and cruel nature of her husband
could devise. Mr. Norton brought an action against
Lord Melbourne for the seduction of his wife, and the
jury decided without leaving the box that Lord Mel-
bourne was wholly innocent. This did not prevent
the petty malice of her husband from depriving Mrs.
Norton entirely of her three infant children, one of
whom died from an accident which ought never to have

12 WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE

happened if the child had been duly cared for. To
read her life 1 is comparable to being present at a
vivisection. Mrs. Norton had one weapon. She could
make herself heard ; she wrote a pamphlet in 1836
called " The Natural Claim of a Mother to the Custody oj
her Children as affected by the Common Law Right of the
Father." One result which followed from Mrs. Norton's
sufferings, coupled with her power of giving public
expression to them, was the passing of Serjeant Talf ourd's
Act in 1839, called the Infants' Custody Act, giving a
mother the right of access to her children until they are
seven years old. This is the first inroad on the monopoly
on the part of the father of absolute control over his
children created by the English law. The division of
legal rights over their children between fathers and
mothers has been described by a lawyer as extremely
simple the fathers have all and the mothers none.
Serjeant Talfourd's Act did not do much to redress this
injustice ; but it did something, and marks the

inning of a new epoch.

Jttle by little things began to change. Mrs. Somer-
ville and Miss Caroline Herschell were elected members
of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1835. Mrs.
Browning wrote " Aurora Leigh," and thereby touched
the whole woman's question with an artist's hand.
Thackeray, in Esmond, pointed the finger of scorn at
the " politicians and coffee-house wiseacres," who are
full of oratorical indignation against the tyrannies of
the Emperor or the French King, and wonders how they,
who are tyrants too in their way, govern their own
little dominions at home, where each man reigns ab-
solute. " When the annals of each little reign are
shown to the Supreme Master, under whom we hold
sovereignty, histories will be laid bare of household
tyrants as cruel as Amurath, and as savage as Nero,
and as reckless and dissolute as Charles." This was
a new note in literature. Mrs. Jameson and the Bronte
sisters contributed much in the same key. Anne

1 The Life of Mrs. Norton, by Miss Jane Gray Perkins (John
Murray).

THE BEGINNINGS 13

Knight, a Quaker lady of Quiet House, Chelmsford,
issued about 1847 a small leaflet boldly claiming a share
for women in political freedom. There can be little
doubt that the presence of a pure and virtuous young
woman upon the throne had its influence in leading
people to question seriously whether there was any real
advantage to the nation at large in shutting out from
direct political pipwer all women who were not queens.
In 1848 J Mr. Disraeli, in the House of Commons, had
said, " In a country governed by a woman where you
allow women to form part of the other estate of the
realm peeresses in their own right, for example
where you allow women not only to hold land but to
be ladies of the manor and hold legal courts where a
woman by law may be a churchwarden and overseer of
the poor I do not see, where she has so much to do
with the State and Church, on what reasons, if you
come to right, she has not a right to vote."

Other influences were operating to open political
activity to women. Their help and co-operation were
warmly welcomed by the Anti-Corn Law League.
Cobden, at one of the great meetings of the League held
in Covent Garden Theatre in 1845, said that he wished
women could vote. A few years later than this the
Sheffield Female Political Association passed a re-
solution in favour of women's suffrage, and presented
a petition in this sense to the House of Lords. The
refusal to allow women who had been duly appointed as
delegates in the United States to take their places in
the Anti-Slavery Congress held in London in 1840
roused a great deal of controversy, especially as William
Lloyd Garrison, the leader of the Anti-Slavery Move-
ment in America, 2 declared that if the ladies were ex-
cluded he would share their exclusion with them ; he
did this, and sat with them in a side gallery, taking no

1 The date of this speech is given in Miss Blackburn's Record
of Woman's Suffrage as 1866, the only mistake I have found in her
careful and faithful history.

2 See the interesting picture in the staircase of the National
Portrait Gallery, London.

14 WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE

part in the discussion. The opponents of the women
took refuge, as they have so often done before and
since, in an affirmation that they were the special re-
positories of the Divine Will on the subject, and de-
clared that it was contrary to the ordinances of the
Almighty that women should take part in the Congress.
The treatment they had received in London naturally
caused great indignation on the part of the American
ladies, among whom were Elizabeth Cady Stanton
and Lucretia Mott. When they returned to their own
country they immediately began to work for the political
enfranchisement of women, and the first Women's
Rights Convention was held in the United States at
Seneca Falls in 1848. This was the beginning of de-
finite work for women's suffrage in the United
States.

In England in the 'fifties came the Crimean War,
with the deep stirring of national feeling which accom-
panied it, and the passion of gratitude and admiration
which was poured forth on Miss Florence Nightingale
for her work on behalf of our wounded soldiers. It
was universally felt that there was work for women,
even in w^ar the work of cleansing, setting in order,
breaking down red tape, and soothing the vast sum of
human suffering which every war is bound to cause.
Miss Nightingale's work in war was work that never
had been done until women came forward to do it, and
her message to her countrywomen was educate your-
selves, prepare, make ready ; never imagine that your
task can be done by instinct, without training and pre-
paration. Painstaking study, she insisted, was just
as necessary as a preparation for women's work as
for men's work ; and she bestowed the whole of the
monetary gift offered her by the gratitude of the nation
to form training-schools for nurses at St. Thomas's
and King's College Hospitals.

When a fire is once kindled many things will serve as
fuel which to a superficial glance would seem to have
no connection with it. The sufferings and torture of
women during the Indian Mutiny heroically borne

SUFFRAGE QUESTION IN PARLIAMENT 15

helped people to see that Empire is built on the lives of
women as well as on the lives of men."

" On the bones of the English
The English flag is stayed''

means that women as well as men have laid down their
lives for their country.

In 1857 the movement among women for political
recognition was stimulated in quite a different way.
In that year the Divorce Act was passed, and, as is
well known, set up by law a different moral standard
for men and women. Under this Act, which is still in
force (1911), a man can obtain the dissolution of his
marriage if he can prove one act of infidelity on the
part of his wife ; but a woman cannot get her marriage
dissolved unless she can prove that her husband has
been guilty both of infidelity and cruelty. Mr. Gladstone
vehemently opposed this Bill. It is said that " in a
ten hours' debate on a single clause he made no less than
twenty-nine speeches, some of them of considerable
length." 1 All these things prepared the way for the
movement which took definite shape in the next decade.

CHAPTER H

WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE QUESTION IN PARLIAMENT FIRST
STAGE

"All who live in a country should take an interest in that
country, love that country, and the vote gives that sense
of interest, fosters that love." Rt. Hon. W. E. Gladstone.

THE women's suffrage question in 1860 was on the
point of entering a new phase the phase of practical
politics. Parliamentary Reform was again before the
country ; the principles of representation were con-
stantly discussed in newspapers, and in every social
circle where intelligent men and women met.

James Mill's article on " Government," referred to in
Chapter I., has been described as being " out of sight
1 Morley's Life of Gladstone, vol. i. p. 571.

16 WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE

the most important in the series of events which cul-
minated in the passing of the Reform Act of 1832." 1
The works of his son, John Stuart Mill, had a similar
influence on the series of events which led up to the
passing of the Reform Act of 1867. But whereas James
Mill had specifically excluded women from his argu-
ment, John Mill as specifically and with great force and
vigour included them.

In his Political Economy, and in his collected essays,
and, of course, in his Liberty, it was easy to perceive
that he strongly condemned the condition of sub-
ordination to which the mass of women had been from
time immemorial condemned. But in his Representative
Government, published in 1861, he put forward in a
few eloquent pages of powerful argument the case for
the extension of the suffrage to women, showing that
all the arguments by which the principles of repre-
sentative government were supported were equally
applicable to woman. 2

The volumes of his correspondence, published in 1908,
show how constantly his mind dwelt on the grave in-
justice to women involved by their exclusion from
political rights, and also how deeply he was convinced
that the whole of society loses by treating them as if
they had no responsibility for the right conduct of
national affairs. It was an enormous advantage to the
whole women's movement, not only in England, but
all over the world, that it had for its leader and
champion a man in the front rank of political philo-
sophers and thinkers. He formed a school at the
universities, and in all centres of intellectual activity,
and from that school a large number of the chief leaders
and supporters of the women's movement have been
derived.

As early as 1851 an essay on the " Enfranchisement of
Women" had appeared in the Westminster Review. It
had been written by Mrs. J. S. Mill, and took the form of
a review of the proceedings of a Convention of Women

1 James Mill : a Biography, by Alexander Bain, LL.D., p. 215.
8 Representative Government, by J. S. Mill, pp. 175-180.

SUFFRAGE QUESTION IN PARLIAMENT 17

held in Worcester, Massachusetts, in the previous year to
promote the cause of the political enfranchisement of
women.

The essay is a complete and masterly statement of the
case for the emancipation of women. The terminology
is a little out of date, but the state of mind which she
exposes is perennial. We can all, for instance, recognise
the applicability of the following sentences to the
present time :

" For with what truth or rationality could the
suffrage be termed universal while half the human
species remain excluded from it ? To declare that a
voice in the government is the right of all, and demand
it only for a part the part, namely, to which the
claimant belongs is to renounce even the appearance
of principle. The Chartist, who denies the suffrage to
women, is a Chartist only because he is not a lord ; he is
one of those levellers who would level only down to
themselves." x

This essay, with its clear, pointed, and epigrammatic
style, produced a great effect on the more cultivated
section of public opinion. If Mrs. Mill had lived longer
she would probably have inaugurated the practical organi-
sation of a women's enfranchisement movement, but
she died in the autumn of 1858. What her death meant
to her husband he has left on record in glowing and
touching words, and in his loneliness he endeavoured
" because she would have wished it, to make the best
of what life was left to him," to work on for her purposes
with such diminished strength as could be derived from
thoughts of her and communion with her memory." !

Shortly before the general election of 1865 Mr. Mill
was invited by a considerable body of electors of the
Borough of Westminster to offer himself as a candidate.
In reply he made the plainest possible statement of his
political views, including his conviction that women
were entitled to representation in Parliament. It was
the first time that women's suffrage had ever been

1 Dissertations and Discussions, by J. S. Mill, vol. ii. p. 417.

2 Autobiography, p. 241.

B

18 WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE

brought before English electors, and the fact that
after having announced himself as strongly in favour
of it Mr. Mill was elected, gave a place to women's
suffrage in practical politics.

The situation in Parliament, as regards Parliamentary
Reform, at the time of Mr. Mill's election was very
like what it is now in respect of women's suffrage.
Parliament had been playing with the subject for a
great many years. Reform Bills had been introduced,
voted for, and abandoned again and again. The real
reformers were growing impatient. I, myself, heard
John Bright say about this time or a little later that he
began to think the best way of carrying a Reform Bill
was to tell working men that " a good rifle could be
bought for 2." Candidates who stood for election
pledged themselves to Parliamentary Reform, but year
after year went by and nothing was done. Each party
brought forward Reform Bills, but neither party really
wished to enfranchise the working classes. Before 1867
the total electorate only numbered a little over one
million voters. The Reform Bill of 1867 more than
doubled this number. It is not in human nature for
members of Parliament really to like a very large in-
crease in the number of their constituents. Besides the
extra trouble and expense involved, there was in 1865
another deterrent terror. Those who held power
feared the working classes. Working men were sup-
posed to be the enemies of property, and working men
were in an enormous numerical majority over all other
classes combined. " You must not have the vote
because there are so many of you " was a much more
effective argument when used against working men than
it is when used against women; because the working
classes are fifteen or sixteen times more numerous
than all other classes combined, whereas women
are only slightly in excess of men. 1 On one excuse or

1 The census of 1911 shows that the excess of women over men is
in the proportion of 1068 women to 1000 men, and that this pro-
portion has changed but little during the last hundred and ten
years.

SUFFRAGE QUESTION IN PARLIAMENT 19

another the Reform Bills constantly brought before
Parliament were dropped or burked in one of the
thousand ways open to the experienced Parliamentarian
for getting rid of measures which he has to appear to
support, but to which he is in reality opposed. The
time had come, however, after 1865, when it became
apparent that the game was up, and that a Reform
Bill would have to be passed. It was to this Parliament
that Mill was elected, and in which in 1867, as an amend-
ment to the Reform Bill, he raised the question of the
enfranchisement of women. His motion was to omit
the word " man " and insert the word " person " in
the enfranchising clause. Of this he says himself that
it was by far the most important public service that
he was able to perform as a member of Parliament.
Seventy -three members voted with him and 196
against him ; with the addition of pairs and tellers the
total number supporting women's suffrage was over
80. This amount of support surpassed all expectations.
Before the debate and division it was uncertain whether
women's suffrage would command more than a few
stray votes in the House. Mr. Mill's masterly speech,
grave and high-toned, made a deep impression. Perhaps
the thing that pleased him most was the fact that John
Bright voted with him. He was known to be an
opponent of women's suffrage, but he was fairly won
over by the force of Mill's speech. Those who watched
him sitting in the corner seat of the front row on the
left-hand side of the Speaker, just below Mr. Mill, saw
his whole expression and demeanour change as the
speech proceeded. His defiant, mocking expression
changed to one that was serious and thoughtful ; no
one but Mill ever had the moral and mental strength
to wrestle with him again successfully. It was the
first and last time he ever gave a vote for women's
suffrage.

It is an oft-told tale how in the previous year a
little committee of workers had been formed to promote
a Parliamentary petition from women in favour of
women's suffrage. It met in the house of Miss Garrett,

20 WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE

(now Mrs. Garrett Anderson, M.D.), and included Mrs.
Bodichon, Miss Emily Davies, Mrs. Peter Taylor, Miss
Rosamond Davenport Hill, and other well-known
women. They consulted Mr. Mill about the petition,
and he promised to present it if they could collect as
many as a hundred names. After a fortnight's work
they secured 1499, including many of the most distin-
guished women of the day, such as Mrs. Somerville,
Frances Power Cobbe, Florence Nightingale, Harriet
Martineau, Miss Swanwick, Mrs. Josephine Butler,
Lady Anna Gore Langton, Mrs. Willian Grey. In
June 1866 Miss Garrett and Miss Emily Davies took the
petition down to the House, entering by way of West-
minster Hall. They were a little embarrassed by the
size of the roll in their charge, and deposited it with
the old apple-woman, who hid it under her stall. The
ladies did not know how to find Mr. Mill, when at that
moment Mr. Fawcett passed through Westminster
Hall and at once offered to go in search of him. Mr.
Mill was much amused on his arrival when he found
the petition was hidden away under the apple-woman's
stall ; but he was greatly delighted by the large number
of names which had been obtained, and exclaimed,
" Ah, this I can brandish with great effect." l

It was in 1867 that the Reform Bill was carried, and
Mr. Mill's Women's Suffrage Amendment defeated on
May 20th. The testing of the actual legal effect of the
passing of the Bill upon the political status of women
(already described in Chapter I.) took place in 1868.
These events caused a great deal of thought and dis-
cussion with regard to women's position in relation to
the State and public duties in general ; and it is as
certain as anything which is insusceptible of absolute
proof can be, that to the interest excited by the claim
of women to the Parliamentary vote was due the
granting to them of the Municipal Franchise in 1869;
and also that in 1870, when the first great Education
Act was passed, they were not only given the right to
vote for members of School Boards, but also the right

1 Record of Women's Suffrage, by Helen Blackburn, pp. 53, 54, 55.

SUFFRAGE QUESTION IN PARLIAMENT 21

to be elected upon them. At the first School Board
election, which took place in London in November 1870,
Miss Elizabeth Garrett, M.D., and Miss Emily Davies
were returned as members. Miss Garrett was at the
head of the poll in her constituency Marylebone. She
polled more than 47,000 votes, the largest number, it
was said at the time, which had ever been bestowed
upon any candidate in any election in England. In
Manchester Miss Becker was elected a member of the
first School Board, and was continuously re-elected for
twenty years, until her death in 1890. In Edinburgh
Miss Flora Stevenson was elected to the first School
Board, and was continuously re-elected for thirty-
three years until her death in 1905. From the date
of her election she was appointed by her colleagues to
act as convener of some of their most important com-
mittees, and in 1900 was unanimously elected the
chairman of the board ; she retained this most honour-
able and responsible post until the end of her
life.

The connection between the election of the ladies
just mentioned and other instances might be added
with the suffrage movement is strongly indicated by
the fact that they were, without exception, the leading
personal representatives of the suffrage movement in
the various places in which they respectively lived.
Miss Garrett and Miss Davies, as just described, helped to
organise the suffrage petition, which they handed to
Mr. Mill in 1866 ; Miss Becker was the head and front
of the suffrage movement in Manchester, and Miss
Flora Stevenson in Edinburgh. These ladies had taken
an active part in starting the women's suffrage societies
in their own towns. Five important societies came
into existence almost simultaneously in London,
Manchester, Edinburgh, Bristol, and Birmingham, and
as they almost immediately devised a plan for com-
bining individual responsibility with united action, they
formed the nucleus of the National Union of Women's
Suffrage Societies, which has become the largest organisa-
tion of the kind in the United Kingdom, and in October

22 WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE

1911 numbered 305 societies, a number which is con-
stantly and rapidly increasing.

With the suffrage work carried on by the societies,
other work for improving the legal status of women,
resisting encroachments upon their constitutional
liberties, and improving their means of education went
on with vigour, sobriety, and enthusiasm ; these
qualities were combined in a remarkable degree, and
were beyond all praise. It has been remarked that
the successful conduct of every great change needs the
combination of the spirit of order with the spirit of
audacity. It was the good fortune of the women's
movement in England to secure both these. The
suffrage societies from the first saw the necessity of
keeping to suffrage work only ; but the same individuals
in a different capacity were labouring with heroic
persistence and untiring zeal to lift up the conditions of
women's lives in other ways ; thus to Mrs. Jacob Bright,
Mrs. Wolstenholme Elmy, Mrs. Duncan M'Laren, and
Mrs. Pochin, we owe the first Married Women's Property
Act, and also the Guardianship of Children Act; tc
Mrs. Bodichon and Miss Davies, Henry Sidgwick and
Russell Gurney, the opening of university education to
women ; to Miss Garrett (now Mrs. Anderson), Dr.
Elizabeth Blackwell, and Miss Jex Blake, the opening
of the medical profession ; to Mrs. Josephine Butler,
and Mr. and Mrs. Sheldon Amos, Sir James Stanfeld,
and Mr. James Stuart, the repeal of the Contagious
Diseases Acts (passed in 1866 and 1868) ; to Mrs. William
Grey, Miss Sherriff and Miss Gurney, the creation of
good secondary schools for girls. I am well aware
that in this bald recital I have omitted the names of
many noble, conscientious, and self-sacrificing workers
for the great causes to which they had devoted them-
selves ; I cannot even attempt to make my list ex-
haustive ; I have but selected from a very large number,
all ardent suffragists, a few names that stand out pre-
eminently in my memory among the glorious company
whose efforts laid the foundations on which we at the
present day are still building the superstructure of

SUFFRAGE QUESTION IN PARLIAMENT 23

equal opportunity and equal justice for women and
men.

As an illustration of how the tone has changed in
regard to the personal and proprietary rights of women
I can give a little story which fell within my own ex-
perience. In the 'seventies I was staying with my
father at a time when he had convened in his house a
meeting of Liberal electors of East Suffolk. We were
working then for a Married Women's Property Bill. The
first Act passed in 1870 gave a married woman the
right to possess her earnings, but not any other property.
I had petition forms with me, and thought the " Liberal "
meeting would afford me a good opportunity of getting
signatures to it. So I took it round and explained its
aim to the quite average specimens of the Liberal
British farmer. " Am I to understand you, ma'am,
that if this Bill passes, and my wife have a matter of a
hundred pound left to her, I should have to ask her for
it ? " said one of them. The idea appeared monstrous
that a man could not take his wife's 100 without even
going through the form of asking her for it.

But we were making way steadily. It is true that
Mr. Mill was not re-elected in 1868, but Mr. Jacob Bright
succeeded him as the leader in the House of Commons
of the women's suffrage movement. The second
reading of his, the first Women's Suffrage Bill, was
carried on May 4, 1870, by 124 to 91. Further pro-
gress was, however, prevented, mainly in consequence
of the opposition of the Government, and on the motion
to go into committee on May 12, the Bill was defeated
by 220 to 94.

From the beginning women's suffrage had never been
a party question. In the first division, that on Mr.
Mill's Amendment to the Reform Bill, the 73 members
who voted for women's suffrage included about 10
Conservatives, and one of them, the Rt. Hon. Russell
Gurney, Q.C., Recorder of London, was one of the
tellers in the division. The great bulk of the supporters
of the principle of women's suffrage were then and
still are Liberals and Radicals, but from the outset we

24 WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE

have always had an influential group of Conservative
supporters. And it is indicative of the general growth
of the movement that among the large majority secured
for the second reading of Sir George Kemp's Bill in
May 5, 1911, 79 were Conservatives, a number in
excess of the total of those who supported Mr. Mill's
amendment in 1867. Sir Stafford Northcote (afterwards
Lord Iddesleigh) was among the friends of women's
suffrage, and so was Sir Algernon Borthwick (afterwards
Lord Glenesk), the proprietor and editor of The Morning
Post. Support from the Conservative side of the house
was greatly encouraged in 1873 by a letter written by
Mr. Disraeli in reply to a memorial signed by over
11,000 women. The memorial had been forwarded by
Mr. William Gore Langton, M.P., and was thus acknow-
ledged :

" DEAR GORE LANGTON, I was much honoured by receiving
from your hands the memorial signed by 11,000 women of
England among them some illustrious names thanking me
for my services in attempting to abolish the anomaly that the
Parliamentary franchise attached to a household or property
qualification, when possessed by a woman, should not be exercised,
though in all matters of local government when similarly
qualified she exercises this right. As I believe this anomaly
to be injurious to the best interests of the country, 1 trust to see
it removed by the wisdom of Parliament. Yours sincerely,

"B. DISRAELI."

This was written in 1873 in immediate prospect of
the dissolution of Parliament, which took place in
February 1874, and placed Mr. Disraeli in power for
the first time.

These were days of active propaganda for all the
suffrage societies. A hundred meetings were held on
the first six months of 1873, a large number for that
time, though it would be considered nothing now. All
the experienced political men who supported women's
suffrage told us that when the 1874 Parliament came to
an end a change of Government was highly probable, a
new Liberal Government would be in power, and would
certainly deal with the question of representation

THROWING THE WOMEN OVERBOARD 25

that then would be the great opportunity, the psycho-
logical moment, for the enfranchisement of women.
The agricultural labourers were about to be enfranchised
and the claim of women to share in the benefits of
representative government was at least as good, and
would certainly be listened to. With these hopes we
approached the election of 1880.

CHAPTER III

THROWING THE WOMEN OVERBOABD IN 1884

" We have filled the well-fed with good things, and the hungry
we have sent empty away." From the Politician's Magnificat.

THE year 1880 opened cheerfully for suffragists. There
was a series of great demonstrations of women only,
beginning with one in the Free Trade Hall, Manchester,
in February. The first little bit of practical success
too within the United Kingdom came this year, for
suffrage was extended to women in the Isle of Man.
At first it was given only to women freeholders, but after
a few years' experience of its entirely successful operation
all feeling of opposition to it died away, and it was
extended to women householders. The representative
system of the Isle of Man is one of the oldest in the
world, and the House of Keys is of even greater antiquity
than the House of Commons.

The general election took place in March and April
1880, and the Liberals were returned to power with a
large majority. Mr. Gladstone became Prime Minister,
and it was well known that the extension of Household
Suffrage in the counties would be an important feature
in the programme of the new Government. Mr. Goschen
declined to join Mr. Gladstone's Government, because
he was opposed to the extension of the Parliamentary
franchise to the agricultural labourers. It is strange
how the whirligig of time brings about its revenges.
Mr. Goschen held out to the last against the enfranchise-
ment of the agricultural labourers, but after the election

26 WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE

of 1906 he publicly congratulated a meeting of Unionist
Free Traders on " the magnificent stand the agricultural
labourers had made for Free Trade ! " If his counsels
had prevailed in 1880, not one of these men would have
had a vote and could have made a stand for Free Trade
or anything else. But in politics memories are short,
and no one reminded Lord Goschen, as he had then be-
came, of his stand against the labourers' vote a few
years earlier.

As the time approached when the Government of
1880 would introduce their Bill to extend household
suffrage to counties, the exertions of the women's
suffragists were redoubled. One of the methods of
propaganda adopted was the bringing forward of re-
solutions favourable to women's suffrage at the meet-
ings and representative gatherings of political associa-
tions of both the great parties.

Resolutions favourable to an extension of the Parlia-
mentary suffrage to women were carried at the Parlia-
mentary Reform Congress at Leeds in October 1883, at
the National Liberal Federation at Bristol in 1883, at
the National Reform Union, Manchester, January 1884,
at the National Union of Conservative Associations
(Scotland) at Glasgow in 1887, at the National Union
of Conservative and Constitutional Associations' Annual
Conference (Oxford) 1887, and so on yearly, or at very
frequent intervals, down to the present time. 1

At the Reform Conference at Leeds in 1883, presided
over by Mr. John Morley, and attended by 2000 delegates
from all parts of the country, it was moved by Dr.
Crosskey of Birmingham, and seconded by Mr. Walter
M'Laren, to add to the resolution supporting household
suffrage in the counties the following rider : " That in
the opinion of this meeting, any measure for the extension
of the suffrage should confer the franchise on women who,
'possessing^ the qualifications which entitle men to vote, have
now the right of voting in all matters of local government."

It was pointed out by Mr. M'Laren (now a member of
the House of Commons and one of our mast valued
1 Record of Women's Suffrage, p. 190, by Helen Blackburn.

THROWING THE WOMEN OVERBOARD 27

supporters) that in the previous session a memorial
signed by 110 members of Parliament, of whom the
chairman, Mr. John Morley, was one, had been handed
to Mr. Gladstone, to the effect that no measure for
the extension of the franchise would be satisfactory
unless it included women. Mrs. Cobden Unwin and Mrs.
Helen Clark, the daughters respectively of Richard
Cobden and John Bright, spoke in support of the rider,
which was carried by a very large majority. But when
the Reform Bill of 1884 came before the House of
Commons it was found that the inclusion of women
within the Bill had an inexorable opponent in the
Prime Minister, Mr. Gladstone. He did not oppose
Women's Suffrage in principle. In 1871 he had taken
part in a woman's suffrage debate in the House of
Commons and had said :

" So far as I am able to form an opinion of the general tone
and opinion of our law in these matters, where the peculiar
relations of men and women are concerned, that law does less
than justice to women, and great mischief, misery, and scandal
result from that state of things in many of the occurrences and
events of life. . . . If it should be found possible to arrange a
safe and well-adjusted alteration of the law as to political power,
the man who shall attain that object, and who shall see his
purpose carried onward to its consequences in a more just
arrangement of the provisions of other laws bearing upon the
condition and welfare of women, will, in my opinion, be a real
benefactor to his country."

It is somewhat difficult to deduce from this statement
the condition of the mind from which it proceeded ; but
it was generally thought to mean that Mr. Gladstone
believed that women had suffered practical grievances
owing to their exclusion from representation, and that
it would be for their benefit and for the welfare of the
country if a moderate measure of women's suffrage
could be passed into law. When, however, it came to
moving a definite amendment to include women in the
Reform Bill of 1884, the most vehement opposition
was offered by Mr. Gladstone ; not indeed even then
to the principle of women's suffrage, but to its being

28 WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE

added to the Bill before the House. The idea that
household suffrage was not democratic had not then
been invented. The Prime Minister's line was that
the Government had introduced into the Bill " as much
as it could safely carry." The unfortunate nautical
metaphor was repeated again and again : " Women's
suffrage would overweight the ship." "The cargo
which the vessel carries is, in our opinion, a cargo as
large as she can safely carry." He accordingly threw
the women overboard. So different are the traditions of
the politician from the heroic traditions of the seaman
who, by duty and instinct alike, is always prompted
in moments of danger to save the women first.

Comment has been made on the curious ambiguity
of the language in which Mr. Gladstone had supported
the principle of women's suffrage in 1871. There was
no ambiguity in what he said about it in 1884. In
language perfectly plain and easily understood he said,
" I offer it [Mr. Woodall's Women's Suffrage Amendment]
the strongest opposition in my power, and I must dis-
claim and renounce responsibility for the measure [i.e.
the Government Reform Bill] should my honourable
friend succeed in inducing the committee to adopt the
amendment." This was on June 10, 1884. The de-
cision resulted in a crushing defeat for women's suffrage.
The numbers were 271 against Mr. Woodall's amend-
ment to 135 for it. Among the 271 were 104 Liberals
who were pledged supporters of suffrage. Three
members of the Government, who were known friends
of women's suffrage, did not vote at all, but walked out
of the House before the division. To one of them
Mr. Gladstone wrote the next day pointing out that
to abstain from supporting the Government in a critical
division was equivalent to a resignation of office. But
he added that a crisis in foreign affairs was approaching
which might be of the deepest importance to '" the
character and honour of the country and to the law,
the concord and possibly even the peace of Europe.
It would be most unfortunate were the minds of men
at such a juncture to be disturbed by the resignation of

THROWING THE WOMEN OVERBOARD 29

a cabinet minister and of two other gentlemen holding
offices of great importance." He, therefore, was pro-
posing to his colleagues that he should be authorised
to request the three gentlemen referred to, to do the
Government the favour of retaining their respective
offices. As they had never resigned them, this petition
that they should withdraw their resignation seemed a
little superfluous.

The blow to women's suffrage dealt by the defeat of
Mr. WoodalTs Amendment to the 1884 Reform Bill was
a heavy one, and was deeply felt by the whole move-
ment. But though fatal to immediate Parliamentary
success, the events of 1884 strengthened our cause in
the country. Everything which draws public attention
to the subject of representation and to the political
helplessness of the unrepresented makes people ask
themselves more and more " Why are women excluded ? "
" If representative government is good for men, why
should it be bad for women ? " " Why do members of
Parliament lightly break their promises to non- voters ? "
It will be remembered that the Reform Bill of 1884
was not finally passed until late in the autumn. While
the final stages of the measure were still pending, the
Trades Union Congress meeting at Aberdeen passed a
resolution, with only three dissentients, " That this Con-
gress is strongly of opinion that the franchise should be
extended to women rate-payers" Thus at that critical
juncture the working men's most powerful organisation
stood by the women whom the Liberal party had be-
trayed.

New political forces made their appearance very
soon after the passing of the Reform Act of 1884, which
have had an almost immeasurable effect in promot-
ing the women's suffrage cause. The Reform Act had
contained a provision to render paid canvassing illegal,
and in 1883 Sir Henry James (afterwards Lord James
of Hereford) had introduced, on behalf of the Govern-
ment, and carried a very stringent Corrupt Practices
Act. Its main feature was to place a definite limit,
proportioned to the number of electors in each con-

30 WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE

stituency, upon the authorised expenditure of the
candidates. Political agents and party managers had
been accustomed to employ a large number of men as
paid canvassers, and to perform the great amount of
clerical and other drudgery connected with electoral
organisation. The law now precluded paid canvassing
altogether, and, by limiting the authorised expenditure,
severely restrained the number of people who could be
employed on ordinary business principles, of so much
cash for so much work. But the work had got to be
done, or elections would be lost. It was necessary,
therefore, to look round and see how and by whom the
work could be performed now that the fertilising shower
of gold was withdrawn. The brilliant idea occurred
to Lord Randolph Churchill, Sir Algernon Borthwick,
and others to obtain for their own party the services of
ladies. This was the germ of the organisation which
soon became known by the name of the Primrose
League. Ladies were encouraged to take an active
part in the electoral organisation ; they canvassed,
they spoke, they looked up " removals," and " out
voters," and did all kinds of important political work
without fee or reward of any kind, and, therefore,
without adding to candidates' expenses. The ladies
were highly successful from the very first. They
showed powers of work and of political organisation
which heretofore had been unsuspected. Their political
friends were delighted. The anger of their political
opponents was unmeasured. It was then that the
expression " filthy witches " was used in relation to
the Dames of the Primrose League by an excited member
of the Liberal party, who attributed his defeat in a
contested election to their machinations. But anger

Slickly gave way to a more practical frame of mind,
the Conservatives could make good use of women
for electoral work, Liberals could do so also and would
not be left behind. The Women's Liberal Federation *

1 A few isolated associations of Liberal women had existed
before this. There was one at Bristol started in 1881 ; but nothing
was done on an extended scale till 1886.

THROWING THE WOMEN OVERBOARD 31

was formed in 1886 under the Presidency of Mrs.
Gladstone, supported on the executive committee
by other ladies, mainly the wives of the Liberal leaders.
The idea of the officers of this association from the
outset was that the object of its existence was to promote
the interests of the Liberal party, or, as Mrs. Gladstone
once put it, "to help our husbands." Events, however,
soon followed which created great dissatisfaction among
the rank and file with this limited range of political
activity. There were many women in the association
who desired not merely to help their party but to
educate it, by promoting Liberal principles, and of these
the extension of representative government to women
was one of the most important.

The Federation was formed in 1886 ; the very next
year a women's suffrage resolution was moved at the
annual council meeting, but was defeated. The same
thing happened in 1888 and 1889, the influence of the
official Liberal ladies being used against it. In 1890,
however, a women's suffrage resolution was carried by
a large majority. The earnest suffragists in the Federa-
tion continued their work, and in 1892 they became so
powerful that fifteen of the members of the executive
committee, who had opposed suffrage being taken up
as part of the work of the Federation, did not offer
themselves for re-election. Mrs. Gladstone, however,
did not withdraw, and continued to hold the office of
president. The retiring members of the executive
took a considerable number of the local associations
with them, and in 1893 these formed a new organisation
called the National Women's Liberal Association.
Some of those who formed this seceding Women's
Liberal Association were definitely opposed to Women's
Suffrage ; others thought that while in principle the
enfranchisement of women was right, the time had not
come for its practical adoption. In practice, however,
the Women's Liberal Federation has stood for suffrage
with ever-increasing firmness since 1890, while the
Women's Liberal Association has continued to oppose it.

The formation of women's political associations was

32 WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE

encouraged by party leaders of all shades of politics.
There is probably not a single party leader, however
strongly he may oppose the extension of the suffrage
to women, who has not encouraged the active participa-
tion of women in electoral work. The Liberal party
issues a paper of printed directions to those who are
asking to do electoral work in its support. The first
of these directions is : Make all possible use of every
available woman in your locality.

Suffragists contend that a party which can do this
cannot long maintain that women are by the mere fact
of their sex unfit to be entrusted with a Parliamentary
vote.

Even as long ago as his first Midlothian campaign,
and before any definite political organisations for
women existed, Mr. Gladstone had urged the women
of his future constituency to come out and bear their
part in the coming electoral struggle. Speaking to a
meeting of women in Dalkeith in 1879 he said :

" Therefore, I think in appealing to you ungrudgingly to open
your own feelings and bear your own part in a political crisis
like this, we are making no inappropriate demand, but are
beseeching you to fulfil the duties which belong to you, which
so far from involving any departure from your character as
women, are associated with the fulfilment of that character and
the performance of those duties, the neglect of which would
in future years be a source of pain and mortification, and the
accomplishment of which would serve to gild your future years
with sweet remembrances and to warrant you in hoping that
each in your own place and sphere has raised your voice for
justice, and has striven to mitigate the sorrows and misfortunes
of mankind."

In less ornate language Mr. Asquith, in January 1910,
thanked the women of Fife for the aid they had given
him and his cause during the election, and said that
" their healthy influence on the masculine members
of the community had had not a little to do with
keeping things in a satisfactory condition."

The organised political work of women has grown
since 1884, and has become so valuable that none of the

THROWING THE WOMEN OVERBOARD 33

parties can afford to do without it or to alienate it.
Short of the vote itself this is one of the most important
political weapons which can possibly have been put
into our hands. At the outset, while the women's
political societies were still young, and were hardly
conscious of their power, the women's suffrage move-
ment benefited greatly by their existence. If the
Women's Liberal Federation had existed in 1884, the
104 Liberals who voted against Mr. Woodall's amend-
ment would have probably decided that honesty was
the best policy. In 1892 Sir Albert Rollit introduced a
Women's Suffrage Bill, as nearly as possible on the lines
of the Conciliation Bill of 1910-11. Before the second
reading great efforts were made by the Liberal party
machine to secure a crushing defeat for this Bill on its
second reading : a confidential circular was sent out
to all Liberal candidates in the Home Counties advising
them not to allow Liberal women to speak on their

Elatforms lest they should advocate " female suffrage."
a addition to this, Mr. Gladstone was induced to write
a letter addressed to Mr. Samuel Smith, M.P., against
the Bill, in which he departed from his previous view-
that the political work done by women would be quite
consistent with womanly character and duties, and
would "gild their future years with sweet remem-
brances." He now said that voting would, he feared,
" trespass upon their delicacy, their purity, their re-
finement, the elevation of their whole nature."

In addition to all this a whip was sent out signed by
twenty members of Parliament, ten from each side of
the House, earnestly beseeching members to be in their
places when Sir Albert Rollit's Bill came on and to
vote against the second reading. But when the division
came, notwithstanding all the unusual efforts that had
been made, it was only defeated by 23. A general
election was known to be not very far off, and members
who were expecting zealous and efficient support from
women in their constituencies did not care to alienate
it by denying to women the smallest and most ele-
mentary of political privileges. In surprising numbers

O

34 WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE

(as compared with 1884) they stood to their guns, and
though they did not save the Bill, the balance against
it was so small that it was an earnest of future victory.
This division in 1892 was the last time a Women's
Suffrage Bill was defeated on a straight issue in the
House of Commons. Mr. Faithfull Begg's Bill in 1897
was carried on second reading by 228 votes to 157.
After this date direct frontal attacks on the principle
of women's suffrage were avoided in the House of
Commons. The anti-suffragists in Parliament used every
possible trick and stratagem to prevent the subject
being discussed and divided on in the House. In this
they were greatly helped by Mr. Labouchere, to whom
it was a congenial task to shelve the women's suffrage
question. On one occasion he and his little group of
supporters talked for hours about a Bill dealing with
" verminous persons," because it stood before a
Suffrage Bill, and he thus succeeded in preventing our
Bill from coming before the House.

CHAPTER IV
WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE IN GREATER BRITAIN

" Wake up, Mother Country." Speech by King George V. when
Prince of Wales.

THE debate on Sir Albert Eollit's Bill in 1892 brought
out a full display of oratorical power from all quarters
of the House, both for and against women's suffrage.
Mr. James Bryce, Mr. Asquith, and Sir Henry James
(afterwards Lord James) spoke against the Bill. Mr.
Balfour, Mr. (now Lord) Courtney, and Mr. Wyndham
supported it. When Mr. Bryce spoke he used the timid
argument that women's suffrage was an untried
experiment. " It is a very bold experiment," he said ;
" our colonies are democratic in the highest degree ;
why do they not try it ? " and again, " This is an
experiment so large and bold that it ought to be tried by
some other country first." Mr. Asquith, in the course

SUFFRAGE IN GREATER BRITAIN 35

of his speech, said much the same thing : " We have
no experience to guide us one way or the other." Mr.
Goldwin Smith, an extra-Parliamentary opponent of
women's suffrage, pointed, in an article, to its solitary
example in the State of Wyoming, where it had been
adopted in 1869, and asked why, if suffrage had
been a success in Wyoming, its example had not
been followed by other states immediately abutting on
its borders.

Now it has frequently been noticed that when this
line of argument is adopted it seems to be a sort of
" mascot " for women's suffrage. When Mr. Bryce
inquired in 1892 " why our great democratic colonies
had not tried women's suffrage," his speech was followed
in 1893 by the adoption of women's suffrage in New
Zealand and in South Australia. When Mr. Goldwin
Smith asked why the States which were in nearest
neighbourhood to Wyoming had not followed her
example, three States in this position, namely Colorado
in 1893, Utah in 1895, and Idaho in 1896, very rapidly
did so. When Sir F. S. Powell, in 1907, said in the
House of Commons that no country in Europe had
ever ventured on the dangerous experiment of en-
franchising its women, women's suffrage was granted
in Finland the same year, and in Norway the year
following. When Mrs. Humphry Ward wrote in 1908
that our cause in the United States was " in process of
defeat and extinction," this was followed by the most
important suffrage victories ever won in America
the States of Washington in 1910, and California in
1911.

The question arises why so well informed and careful
a political controversalist as Mr. James Bryce spoke as
he did in 1892 of the fact that none of our great demo-
cratic colonies had adopted women's suffrage, in evident
ignorance of the fact that two at any rate were on the
point of doing so. The answer is probably to be found
in the attitude of the anti-suffrage press. No body of
political controversialists are so badly served by their
own press as the anti-suffragists. The anti-suffrage

36 WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE

press appears to act on the assumption that if they say
nothing about a political event it is the same as if it had
not happened. Therefore, while they give prominence
to any circumstances which they imagine likely to be
injurious to suffrage, they either say nothing about
those facts which indicate its growing force and volume,
or record them in such a manner that they escape the
observation of the general reader. The result is that
only the suffragists, who are in constant communica-
tion with their comrades in various parts of the world
and also have their own papers, are kept duly informed,
not only of what has happened, but of what is likely
to happen. Mr. Bryce cannot have known of the
imminence of the success of women's suffrage in New
Zealand and South Australia in 1892. Mrs. Humphry
Ward did not know in February 1909 that women's
suffrage had actually been carried in Victoria, and
had received the royal assent in 1908. She could have
known very little of the real strength of the suffrage
movement in the United States, when she said it was
virtually dead, just at the moment when it was about
to give the most unmistakable proofs of energy and
vigour. For all this ignorance the anti-suffrage press
of London is mainly responsible. " Things are what
they are and their consequences will be what they will
be," whether the newspapers print them or not, and
to leave the controversialists on your own side in
ignorance of facts of capital importance is a strange way
of showing political allegiance. 1

It is a mistake to represent that women's suffrage
was brought about in New Zealand suddenly or, as it
were, by accident. The w r omen of New Zealand did not,
as has sometimes been said, wake up one fine morning
in 1893 and find themselves enfranchised. Sustained,
self-sacrificing, painstaking, and well-organised work
for women's suffrage had been going on in the Colony

1 An important new departure in journalism was taken by The
Standard in October 1911. This paper now devotes more than
a page daily to a full statement both of events and arguments
bearing on all sides of the suffrage and other women's questions.

SUFFRAGE IN GREATER BRITAIN 37

for many years. 1 The germ of it may be traced even
as early as 1843, and many of the most distinguished
men whose names are connected with New Zealand
history as true empire-builders have been identified
with the movement, including Mr. John Ballance, Sir
Julias Vogel, Sir R. Stout, Sir John Hall, and Sir
George Grey. It is curious that Mi. Richard Seddon,
under whose Premiership women's suffrage was finally
carried, was not at that time (1893) a believer in it.
He was a Thomas who had to see before he could be-
lieve, but when he had once had experience of women's
suffrage, he was unwearied in proclaiming his confidence
in it. When he was in England in 1902 for King
Edward's Coronation he hardly ever spoke in public
without bearing his testimony to the success of women's
suffrage. Much good seed had been sown in New Zealand
by Mrs. Miiller, an English lady, who landed in Nelson
in 1850. One of her articles, signed " Femina " (she
was obliged to preserve her anonymity for reasons of
domestic tranquillity), won the attention of John Stuart
Mill, and drew from him a most encouraging letter,
and the gift of his book The Subjection of Women.
Mrs. Miiller died in 1902, and thus had the opportunity
of seeing in operation for nearly ten years the successful
operation of the reform for which she had been one of
the earliest workers. An American lady, Mrs. Mary
Clement Leavitt, visited New Zealand in 1885 on behalf
of the Women's Christian Temperance Union. Mrs.
Leavitt was a great organiser and arranged the whole
of the work of the Temperance Union in definite " De-
partments," and a general superintendent was appointed
to each. There was a Franchise Department, the
general superintendent of which was Mrs. Sheppard,
who, from 1887, became an indefatigable and, at the
same time, a cautious and sensible worker for the ex-
tension of the Parliamentary franchise to women.
She was in communication with Sir John Hall and other

1 See Outlines of the Women's Franchise Movement in Neio Zealand,
by W. Sydney Smith. Whitecombe & Tombs, Ltd., Christchurch,
N.Z. 1905.

38 WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE

Parliamentary leaders, and kept in close touch with
the whole movement until it w r as successful.

Just as it is now in England with us, differences arose
among New Zealand suffragists as to how much suffrage
women ought to have, or at any rate for how much
would it be wise to ask, and the parties were called
the "half loafers" and the "whole loafers." The
" no bread " party watched these differences just as
they do in England, and tried unsuccessfully to profit
by them. In the debate on Sir John Hall's Women's
Suffrage resolution hi 1890, Mr. W. P. Reeves, so long
known in England as the Agent - General for New
Zealand, and later as the Director of the London School
of Economics, and also as an excellent friend of women's
suffrage, announced himself to be a " half loafer " ;
indeed he advocated the restriction of the franchise to
such women, over twenty-one years of age, who had
passed the matriculation examination of the university.
There is an Arabic proverb to the effect that the world
is divided into three classes " the immovable, the
movable, and those who actually move." It is unwise
to despair of the conversion of any anti-suffragist unless
he has proved himself to belong to the " immovables."
In 1890 Mr. Beeves, now so good a suffragist, had only
advanced to the point of advocating the enfranchisement
of university women. His proposal for a high edu-
cational suffrage test for women did not meet with
support. It was rejected by more robust suffragists
as " not even half a loaf, only a ginger nut." The
anti-suffragists used the same arguments which they
use with us. They professed themselves to be intimately
acquainted with the views of the Almighty on the
question of women voting. " It was contrary to the
ordinance of God " ; women politicians were represented
as driving a man from his home because it would be
infested " with noisy and declamatory women.'' After
the Bill had passed both Houses a solemn petition was
presented by anti-suffragists, who were members of
the Legislative Council, asking the Governor to with-
hold his assent on the ground that " it would seriously

SUFFRAGE IN GREATER BRITAIN 39

affect the rights of property and embarrass the finances
of the colony, thereby injuriously affecting the public
creditor." Others protested that it was self-evident,
that women's suffrage must lead to domestic discord
and the neglect of home life. Of course all the anti-
suffragists were certain that women did not want the
vote, and would not use it even if it were granted to
them.

The French gentleman who called himself Max O'Rell
was touring New Zealand at the time, and deplored
that one of the fairest spots on God's earth was going
to be turned into a howling wilderness by women's
suffrage. Mr. Goldwin Smith wrote that he gave
women's suffrage ten years in New Zealand, and by
that time it would have wrought such havoc with the
home and domestic life that the best minds in the
country would be devising means of getting rid of it.
A New Zealand gentleman, named Bakewell, wrote an
article in The Nineteenth Century for February 1894, con-
taining a terrible jeremiad about the melancholy results
to be expected in the Dominion from women's suffrage.
The last words of his article were, " We shall probably
for some years to come be a dreadful object lesson to
the rest of the British Empire." This was the prophecy.
What have the facts been ? New Zealand has become
an object-lesson an object-lesson of faithful member-
ship of the Imperial group, a daughter State of which
the mother country is intensely proud. Does not every-
body know that New Zealand is prosperous and happy
and loyal to the throne and race to which she owes
her origin. 1 New Zealand was the first British Colony
to enfranchise her women, and was also the first British
Colony to send her sons to stand side by side with the
sons of Great Britain in the battlefields of South Africa ;
she was also the first British Colony to cable the offer of a
battleship to the mother country in the spring of 1909.
She, with Australia, was the first part of the British
Empire to devise and carry out a truly national system

1 See Report by Sir Charles Lucas, who visited New Zealand on
behalf of the Colonial Office in 1907.

40 WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE

of defence, seeking the advice of the first military
expert of the mother country, Lord Kitchener, to help
them to do it on efficient lines. The women are de-
manding that they should do their share in the great
national work of defence by undergoing universal
ambulance training. 1

New Zealand and Australia have, since they adopted
women's suffrage, inaugurated many important social
and economic reforms, among which may be mentioned
wages boards the principle of the minimum wage
applied to women as well as to men and the establish-
ment of children's courts for juvenile offenders. They
have also purged their laws of some of the worst of the
enactments injurious to women. If it were needed
to rebut the preposterous nonsense urged by anti-
suffragists against women's suffrage in New Zealand
eighteen years ago, it is sufficient to quote the un-
emotional terms of the cable which appeared from New
Zealand in The Times of July 28, 1911 :

" Parliament was opened today. Lord Islington, the Governor,
in his speech, congratulated the Dominion on its continued
prosperity. The increase in the material well-being of the
people, was, he said, encouraging, and there was every reason
to expect a continuance and even an augmentation of the pro-
sperity of the trade and industry of the Dominion. . . . The
results of registration under the universal defence training
scheme were satisfactory. The spirit in which this call for
patriotism had been met was highly commendable."

The testimony concerning the practical working of
women's suffrage in Australia and New Zealand is all
of one kind. It may be summarised in a single sentence,
" Not one of the evils so confidently predicted of it
has actually happened." The effect on home life is
universally said to have been good. The birth-rate in
New Zealand has steadily increased since 1899, and it
has now, next to Australia, the lowest infantile mortality
in the world. In South Australia, where women have
been enfranchised since 1893, the infantile death-rate

1 See Colonial Statesmen and Votes for Women, published by The
Freedom League, p. 6.

SUFFRAGE IN GREATER BRITAIN 41

has also been reduced from 130 in the 1000 to half
that number. Our own anti-suffragists are quite
capable of representing that this argument means that
we are so foolish as to suppose that if a mother drops
a paper into a ballot-box every few years she thereby
prolongs the life of her infant. Of course we do nothing
of the kind ; but we do say that to give full citizenship
to women deepens in them the sense of responsibility,
and they will be more likely to apply to their duties a
quickened intelligence and a higher sense of the im-
portance of the work entrusted to them as women.
The free woman makes the best wife and the most
careful mother.

The confident prediction that women when en-
franchised would not take the trouble to record their
votes has been falsified. The figures given in the
official publication, The New Zealand Year Book; are as
follows :

Date.

MEN.

WOMEN.

Electoral
Roll.

Actually
Voted.

Electoral
Roll.

Actually
Voted.

1893
1896
1899
1902
1905
1908

193,536
196,925
210,529
229,845
263,597
294,073

129,792
149,471
1 59,780
180,294
221,611
238,538

109,461
142,305
163,215
185,944
212,876
242,930

90,290
108,783
119,550
138,565
175,046
190,114

This table shows that men and women who are on
the electoral roll vote in almost the same proportion.
The number of votes actually polled compared with
the number on the register is, of course, to some extent
affected by the number of constituencies in which there
is no contest, or in which the result is regarded as
a foregone conclusion ; but this consideration affects
both sexes alike. It is impossible for reasons of space
to enter in detail in this little book upon the history
in each of the Australian States of the adoption of

42 WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE

women's suffrage. But it is well known that every one
of the States forming the Commonwealth of Australia
has now enfranchised its women, and that one of the
first acts of the Commonwealth Parliament in 1902
was to grant the suffrage to women. The complete list
of dates of women's enfranchisement in New Zealand
and Australia will be found in The Brief Review of tfie
Women's Suffrage Movement, which concludes this
little book.

When the Premiers and other political leaders from
the overseas Dominions of Great Britain were in
London for the Coronation and Imperial Conference of
1911, the representatives of Australia and New Zealand
frequently expressed both in public and in private
their entire satisfaction with the results of women's
suffrage. Mr. Fisher, the Premier of the Common-
wealth, constantly spoke in this sense : " There is no
Australian politician who would nowadays dare to

fet up at a meeting and declare himself an enemy. . . .
t has had most beneficial results. . . . He had not
the slightest doubt that women's votes had had a good
effect on social legislation. . . . The Federal Parliament
took a strong stand upon the remuneration of women,
and the minimum wage which was laid down applied
equally to women and men for the same work " (Man-
chester Guardian, June 3, 1911). On another occasion
Mr. Fisher said that so far from women's suffrage
causing any disunion between men and women, " the
interest which men took in women's affairs when women
had got the vote was wonderful " (Manchester Guardian,
June 10, 1911). Sir William Lyne, Premier of New
South Wales, said : " When the women were enfranchised
in Australia they proceeded at each election to purify
their Parliament, and they had gone on doing so, and
now he was proud to say their Parliament was one of
the model Parliaments of the world " (Manchester
Guardian, August 1, 1911). The Hon. John Murray of
Victoria and the Hon. A. A. Kirkpatrick spoke in the
same sense. Indeed the evidence favourable to the
working of women's suffrage is overwhelming, and is

SUFFRAGE IN GREATER BRITAIN 43

given not only by men who have always supported it,
but by those who formerly opposed it, and have had
the courage to acknowledge that as the result of ex-
perience they have changed their views. Among these
may be mentioned Sir Edmund Barton, the first Premier
of the Commonwealth, and the late Sir Thomas Bent,
the Premier of Victoria, under whose administration
women were enfranchised in that State. Why appeal
to other witnesses when both Houses of the Common-
wealth Parliament in November 1910 unanimously
adopted the following resolution :

" (i.) That this! ^ate } is of P inion that the exten '
sion of the Suffrage to the women of Australia for States
and Commonwealth Parliaments, on the same terms as
men, has had the most beneficial results. It has led
to the more orderly conduct of Elections, and at the
last Federal Elections the women's vote in the majority
of the States showed a greater proportionate increase
than that cast by men. It has given a greater pro-
minence to legislation particularly affecting women
and children, although the women have not taken up
such questions to the exclusion of others of wider signi-
ficance. In matters of Defence and Imperial concern,
they have proved themselves as far-seeing and dis-
criminating as men. Because the reform has brought
nothing but good, though disaster was freely prophesied,
we respectfully urge that all Nations enjoying Repre-
sentative Government would be well advised in granting
votes to women."

With all this wealth of testimony rebutting from
practical experience almost every objection urged
against women's suffrage, it is impossible to exaggerate
the value to the movement here of the example of
Australia and New Zealand. There are few families
in the United Kingdom that have not ties of kindred
or of friendship with Australasia. The men and women
there are of our own race and traditions, starting from
the same stock, owning the same allegiance, acknow-
ledging the same laws, speaking the same language,

44 WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE

nourished mentally, morally, and spiritually from the
same sources. We visit them and they visit us ; and
when their women return to what they fondly term
" home," although they may have been born and
brought up under the Southern Cross, they naturally
ask why they should be put into a lower political status
in Great Britain than in the land of their birth ? What
have they done to lose one of the most elementary
guarantees of liberty and citizenship ? As the ties of
a sane and healthy imperialism draw us closer together
the difference in the political status of women in Great
Britain and her daughter States will become increasingly
indefensible and cannot be long maintained.

CHAPTER V

THE ANTI-SUFFRAGISTS

" We enjoy every species of indulgence we can wish for ; and
as we are content, we pray that others who are not content
may meet with no relief." Burke in House of Commons in
1772 on the Dissenters who petitioned against Dissenters.

THE first organised opposition by women to women's
suffrage in England dates from 1889, when a number
of ladies, led by Mrs. Humphry Ward, Miss Beatrice
Potter (now Mrs. Sidney Webb), and Mrs. Creighton
appealed in The Nineteenth Century against the proposed
extension of the Parliamentary suffrage to women.
Looking back now'oi|^^|he years that have passed
since this protest was pIplTshed, the first thing that
strikes the reader is wjme of the most distinguished
ladies who then co-o^Mffied with Mrs. Humphry Ward
have ceased to be anti-suffragists, and have become
suffragists. Mrs. Creighton and Mrs. Webb have
joined us ; they are not only " movable," but they
have moved, and have given their reasons for changing
their views. Turning from the list of names to the
line of argument adopted against women's suffrage,
we find, on the contrary, no change, no development.

THE ANTI-SUFFRAGISTS 45

The ladies who signed The. Nineteenth Century protest
in 1889 were then as now and this is the essential
characteristic of the anti-suffrage movement com-
pletely in favour of every improvement in the personal,
proprietary, and political status of women that had
already been gained, but against any further extension
of it. The Nineteenth Century ladies were in 1889
quite in favour of women taking part in all local govern-
ment elections, for women's right to do this had been
won in 1870. The protesting ladies said in so many
words " we believe the emancipating process has now
reached the limits fixed by the physical constitution of
women." Less wise than Canute, they appeared to
think they could order the tide of human progress to
stop and that their command would be obeyed. Then,
as now, they protested that the normal experience of
women " does not, and never can, provide them with
such material to form a sound judgment on great
political affairs as men possess," or, as Mrs. Humphry
Ward has more recently expressed it, " the political
ignorance of women is irreparable and is imposed by
nature " ; then having proclaimed the inherent in-
capacity of women to form a sound judgment on
important political affairs, they proceed to formulate
a judgment on one of the most important issues of
practical politics. Several of the ladies who signed The
Nineteenth Century protest in 1889 were at that moment
taking an active part in organising the political work
and influence of women for or against the main political
issue of the day, the granting of Home Rule to Ireland ;
and yet they were saying at the same time that women
had not the material to form a sound judgment in
politics. This is, of course, the inherent absurdity of
the whole position of anti-suffrage women. If women
are incapable of forming a sound judgment in grave
political issues, why invite them and urge them to
express an opinion at all ? Besides this fundamental
absurdity there is another, secondary to it, but none the
less real. Anti -suffragists, especially anti-suffrage men,
maintain that to take part in the strife and turmoil of

46 WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE

practical politics is in its essence degrading to women,
aad calculated to sully their refinement and purity.
If this, indeed, is so, why invite women into the turmoil ?
Why advertise, as the anti-suffragists do, the holding of
classes to train young women to become anti-suffrage
speakers, and thus be able to proclaim on public plat-
forms that " woman's place is home ? " This second
absurdity appears to have occurred to the late editor
of The Nineteenth Century, Sir James Knowles, for a
note is added to the 1889 protest apologising, as it
were, for the inconsistency of asking women to degrade
themselves by taking part in a public political con-
troversy :

"It is submitted," says this note, "that for once and in
order to save the quiet of Home Life from total disappearance
they should do violence to their natural reticence and signify
publicly and unmistakably their condemnation of the scheme
now threatened."

If this note was, as it appears, by the editor, how much
he, too, needed the lesson which Canute gave to his
courtiers. The waves were not to be turned back by a
hundred and odd great ladies doing violence to their
natural reticence and signifying publicly that they
were very well satisfied with things as they were.
" Just for once, in order to save the quiet of home
life from total disappearance," these milk white lambs,
bleating for man's protection, were to cast aside their
timidity and come before the public with a protest
against a further extension of human liberty. The
anti-suffrage protest of 1889 had the effect which
similar protests have ever since had of adding to the
numbers and the activity of the suffragists.

Women anti -suffragists formed themselves into a
society in July 1908 under the leadership of Mrs.
Humphry Ward, and a men's society was shortly
afterwards formed under the chairmanship of the Earl
of Cromer. These two societies were amalgamated
in December 1910. Lord Cromer is the President,
and exerts himself actively in opposition to women's

THE ANTI-SUFFRAGISTS 47

suffrage, and in obtaining funds for the League of which
lie is the leader. In the previous spring of 1910 the
Anti-Suffrage League had adopted as part of its pro-
gramme, besides the negative object of opposing women's
suffrage, the positive object of encouraging "the
principle of the representation of women on municipal
and other bodies concerned with the domestic and social
affairs of the community." But male an ti -suffragists
dwell chiefly on the negative part of their programme.
As a fairly regular reader of the Anti-Suffrage Review
I may say that the advocacy of municipal suffrage and
eligibility for women bears about the same proportion
to the anti-suffrage part of it as Falstaff's bread did
to his sack ; it is always one halfpennyworth of bread,
and even that is sometimes absent, to an intolerable
deal of sack.

The English anti-suffragists' combination of opposing
Parliamentary suffrage and supporting municipal
suffrage for women has no counterpart in the United
States. American anti-suffragists are as bitterly op-
posed to municipal and school suffrage for women
(where it does not exist) as they are to political suffrage.
In the State of New York, not many years ago, the
Albany Association for Opposing Woman's Suffrage
vehemently resisted the appointment of women on
School Boards and said, " It threatens the home,
threatens the sacredness of the marriage tie, threatens
the Church, and undermines the constitution of our
great Republic." An American senator, not to be out-
done, improved even upon this, and spoke of school
suffrage for women in Massachusetts in the following
terms : * c If we make this experiment we shall destroy
the race which will be blasted by the vengeance of
Almighty God." These extravagances do not belong
entirely to the dark ages of the nineteenth century;
only in the summer of 1911 the New York Association
op'posed to the extension of the suffrage to women success-
fully opposed a Bill to confer the municipal suffrage on
women in Connecticut. This Bill had passed the
Senate and was before the House of Representatives,

48 WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE

which was immediately besieged by petitions against
the Bill urging all the old arguments with which we are
so familiar in this country against the Parliamentary
suffrage, such as that it was not fair to women that
they should have the municipal vote " thrust upon
them " ; that Governments rest on force, and force is
male ; that women cannot fight, and therefore should
not vote ; that to give the municipal vote to women
would destroy the home, and undermine the founda-
tions of society. 1

This opposition was successful, and the Bill was de-
feated in face of overwhelming evidence derived from
the numerous cases which were quoted of women
exercising the municipal vote, and sitting as members
of local governing bodies without producing any of
the disastrous consequences so confidently predicted.
Where women have the municipal vote there is no oppo-
sition to it in any quarter, because it is overwhelm-
ingly evident, as Mr. Gladstone once said, that "it has
been productive of much good and no harm whatever."

English suffragists can only heartily rejoice that
English anti-suffragists are so much more intelligent
than those of the United States. It shows that they
are capable of learning from experience. Women have
had the municipal vote in Great Britain since 1870,
and they have voted for Poor Law Guardians and
School Boards (where such still exist) from the same
date. They were rendered eligible for Town and
County Councils in 1907 by an Act passed by Sir Henry
Campbell Bannerman's Government. Suffragists are
far from complaining that anti -suffragists rejoice with
them at these extensions of civic liberty to women.
Though the battle is over and the victory won, it is
very satisfactory to see the good results of women's
suffrage, where it exists, recognised and emphasised
even by anti -suffragists. Mrs. Humphry Ward has
advocated the systematic organisation of the women's
vote in London local elections in order to have increased

1 See letter from Miss Alice Stone Black well in Manchester
Guardian, July 12, 1911.

THE ANTI-SUFFRAGISTS 49

motive power behind some of her excellent schemes
for making more use of playgrounds for the benefit of
the London children. She has also spoken several
times in public in favour of the increased representation
of women on local government bodies ; and has even
gone very near to making a joke on the subject, saying,
in justification of her attitude, " That it was not good to
allow the devil to have all the best tunes," and not wise
for the anti-suffragists to allow the suffragists to claim
a monopoly of ideas and enthusiasm. 1

Still it is rather significant that she comes to the
suffrage camp for the ideas and enthusiasms. Her male
colleagues have not shown themselves very ardent in
the cause of equal rights for women in local government.
In 1898, when the London Borough Councils were estab-
lished in the place of the Vestries, an amendment was
moved and carried in the House of Commons render-
ing women eligible for the newly created bodies as they
had been on the old ones. When the Bill came to the
House of Lords, this portion of it was vehemently op-
posed by the late Lord James of Hereford (afterwards
one of the vice-presidents of the Anti -Suffrage League),
and his opposition was successful, notwithstanding a
powerful and eloquent speech by the late Lord Salisbury,
then Prime Minister, in support of the elegibility of
women on the new Borough Councils. Again, when
in 1907 the Bill rendering women eligible for Town and
County Councils reached the House of Lords, it had no
more sincere and ardent opponent than Lord James.
He saw its bearing upon the question of women's
suffrage, and the absurdity involved in a state of the
law which allows a woman to be a Town or County
Councillor, or even a Mayor, and in that capacity the
returning officer at a Parliamentary election, but does
not permit her to give a simple vote in the election of a
member of Parliament.

" If," said Lord James, " their Lordships accepted this measure
making women eligible for the great positions that had been

1 See Anti-Suffrage Review, No. 33, p. 167.

50 WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE

specified in great communities like Liverpool and Manchester,
where was tJie man who would be able to argue against the Parlia-
mentary franchise for women ? "

The Bill became an Act, notwithstanding Lord James's
opposition, and within twelve months he had become
a vice-president of the League for Opposing Women's
Suffrage and for " Maintaining the Representation of
Women on Municipal and other Bodies concerned with
the Domestic and Social Affairs of the Community."

It has been said by Mrs. Humphry Ward, Miss Violet
Markham, and other anti-suffragists that it is not very
creditable to women's public spirit that four years
after the passing of the Local Government Qualification
of Women Act of 1907, so few women 1 are serving on
Town and County Councils. The chief reason for their
insignificant numbers is that at present only those
women may be elected who are themselves qualified
to elect. Outside London this disqualifies married
women, and in London it only qualifies those married
women who are on the register as municipal voters.
It also disqualifies daughters living, under normal
conditions, in the houses of their parents. The range
of choice of women candidates is, therefore, very
severely restricted. Similar disqualifications in former
years applied to the post of Poor Law Guardian. When
a simple residential qualification was substituted for
the electoral qualification the number of women acting
as Poor Law Guardians increased in a few years from
about 160 to over 1300, of whom eight out of nine
have the residential qualification only, nearly half of
them being married women. It helps people to realise
how the present law limits the range of choice of women
to serve on locally elected bodies to ask them to consider
what would be the effect on the number of men who
could offer themselves for election if marriage were a
disqualification for them also. A Bill for allowing women
to be elected to Town and County Councils on a re-

1 The exact numbers in England and Wales (autumn 1911) are
fifteen on Town Councils (two being Mayors) and four on County
Councils.

THE ANTI-SUFFRAGISTS 51

sidential qualification has been before Parliament for
the four sessions 1908-11. It is "non-contentious,"
but it has never - even got a second reading. Bills
concerning women lack the motive power behind them
which is almost invariably necessary for the successful
passage of a Bill through all its stages. Mrs. Humphry
Ward and Miss Markham have some justification for
their contention that the suffrage movement has largely
absorbed the energies of the more active-minded women,
and prevented them from offering themselves as candi-
dates in municipal elections. This is inevitable. Not
every one possesses the boundless energy of such women
as Miss Margaret Ashton, Miss Eleanor Rathbone, or
Mrs. Lees, who combine active suffrage propaganda
with work of first -class importance as members of
councils in large and important towns. But when once
the battle for suffrage is won, and the qualification is
made reasonable for women, it is almost certain that
the number of women elected on municipal bodies will
largely increase. In Norway, where women's suffrage
has been in operation since 1908, although the popula-
tion is only a little over 2,000,000, the number of women
elected on Town and County Councils in 1911 was 210,
and as many as 379 have been elected in addition as
" alternates." It appears, therefore, that the second-
ary object of the Anti-Suffrage League, " the repre-
sentation of women on municipal bodies," would be
best served by extending the Parliamentary franchise
to women.

The Anti-Suffrage League in England has made a
great point of the number of petitions and protests
which they have obtained from women municipal voters
declaring their antagonism to women's suffrage in
Parliamentary elections. The suffragists, however,
attach little or no importance to the figures which have
been published. When suffragists conduct a canvass
of the same people on the same subject the result
is entirely different. 1 Much criticism has been made

1 As an example I quote the canvass of women municipal electors
in Reading made respectively by the suffragists in 1909 and anti-

52 WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE

upon the manner in which the anti-suffragists have
obtained the signatures to their petitions and protests
against women's suffrage, and we know that in some
cases signatures have been asked for "as a protest
against being governed by these lawless women." Now
there are almost as many fallacies in this sentence as
there are words. Many ardent suffragists, probably
the majority of them, are opposed to the use of physical
violence as a means of obtaining political justice.
Moreover, women are not lawless. Women in this
country, as all criminal statistics prove, are about nine
times more law-abiding than men. 1 If people object
to being governed by the more lawless sex, it is not
women who should be disfranchised. And besides
these considerations there is another the voter, whether
male or female, does not govern. He, when he gives
his vote, has to decide between two or more men
representing different sets of principles, to which he
wishes to confide the various tasks of government.

The Anti-Suffrage Review of January 1911 contained
an article called " Arguments for use in Poor Districts,"
which throws a flood of light on the methods by which
these signatures of women against women's suffrage
have been obtained. The article represents an anti-
suffrage lady going round with a petition against
women's suffrage. She approaches the house of a
working woman and appeals to her whether, after she

suffragists in 1911. When the suffragists canvassed, the results
were :

Did not answer
In Favour Against and Neutral

1047 60 467

When the anti-suffragists canvassed in 1910 the results were :

Did not answer
In Favour Against and Neutral

166 1133 401

With such disparity as this between the two returns no conclusion
can possibly be drawn from either without further investigation
of the methods pursued.

1 See Statistical Abstract from the United Kingdom.

THE ANTI-SUFFRAGISTS 53

has looked after her children and her home, she has not
done all that a woman has time for, and " had better
leave such things as the Government of India and the
Army and Navy, and all those outside things to the
men who understand them." A more extraordinarily
dishonest argument, if argument it can be called, can
hardly be imagined. If it were sound, it would ex-
clude from all share in political power not only working
women, but also working men all who live by the sweat
of their brow, and all hard working professional and
business men. If the argument were a sound one, the
best Government would be a bureaucracy like that of
Russia, where the great tasks of government and the
management of the Army and Navy " are left to the
men who understand them," and where the peasant,
the artisan, the professional man, and the merchant
have nothing to do with laws but to obey them, and
nothing to do with taxes but to pay them. But this
system has never commended itself to the political
instincts of the British nation. Some of the anti-
suffragists at any rate could see this plainly enough
when this " argument " was applied to the continued
exclusion of working men from the franchise. Mr.
Frederic Harrison has written words on this very
subject which are as applicable to women to-day as
they were to men at the time when they were first
published :

" Electors have not got to govern a country ; they have only to
find a set of men who will see that the Government is fresh and
active. . . . Government is one thing, but electors of any class
cannot and ought not to govern. Electing, or giving an indirect
approval of Government, is another thing, and demands wholly
different qualities. These are moral, not intellectual, practical,
not special gifts gifts of a very plain and almost universal
order. Such are, firstly, social sympathies and sense of justice,
then openness and plainness of character ; lastly, habits of action
and a practical knowledge of social misery." *

1 Quoted in Lord Morley's Studies in Literature, pp. 133, 134.
The reference there given for the extract is Order and Progress, by
Frederic Harrison, pp. 149-154.

it the

54 WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE

These are the lessons of their own leaders ; but
anti-suffragists pay no heed to them ; it is little wonder
then that they pay no heed to the great suffrage leader
who has taught us that women, like men, do not need
the franchise in order that they may govern, but in
order that they may not be misgoverned.

One other consideration may be deduced from this
extraordinary article " Arguments for use in Poor
Districts." If the an ti -suffragists will put into cold
print such " arguments " that women ought not to
vote because they are occupied with the daily tasks of
ordinary life and are not prepared to govern India or
manage the Army and Navy, what may not the anti-
suffragists say in private in the cottages which they
visit in order to overcome the reluctance of working
women to put their names to the anti-suffrage petitions ?

The women who petition against women's enfranchise-
ment are a type that we have always with us. Burke
held them up to disdain and contempt in inimitable
words in 1772, when Dissenters petitioned against
Dissenters. The Five Mile Act and the Test and Cor-
poration Act were then in force. The Test Act made
the taking of the Sacrament according to the rites of
the Church of England a necessary qualification for
holding public office of any kind. The Five Mile Act
forbade the proscribed Nonconformists from preaching
or holding meetings within five miles of any corporate
town. In 1772 these Acts were not often put into
operation, but as long as they were in the Statute Book
the Nonconformist leaders felt that they were doomed
to live on sufferance ; their friends in Parliament
prepared a Bill for their relief from these outrageous
disabilities. Opposition was, of course, at once
awakened ; it proceeded mainly from the King and the
" King's friends." Their hands were strengthened by
receiving a petition signed by dissenting ministers, who
entreated Parliament not to surrender a test " imposed
expressly for the maintenance of those essential doctrines
upon which the Reformation was founded." They were
for the time successful, but Burke's oratory has pointed

THE ANTI-SUFFRAGISTS 55

the finger of scorn at them for all time. " Two
bodies of men," he said, " approach our House and
prostrate themselves at our Bar. ' We ask not honours,'
say the one. 'We have no aspiring wishes, no views
upon the purple. . . .' 'We, on the contrary,' say
the Dissenters who petition against Dissenters, 'enjoy
every species of indulgence we can wish for ; and as
we are content, we pray that others who are not con-
tent may meet with no relief.' " x

We do not envy the Dissenters who petitioned against
Dissenters in the eighteenth century, and future genera-
tions will probably mete out no very kindly judgment
to the women who petitioned against women in 1889
and 1911 : " As we are content, we pray that others
who are not content may meet with no relief."

One most effective reply has been made by the
suffragists to the allegation of their opponents that
women do not desire their own enfranchisement.
Between the autumns of 1910 and 1911 more than
130 local councils petitioned Parliament in favour of
passing without delay the Women's Suffrage Bill,
known as the Conciliation Bill. These councils com-
prise those of the most important towns in the kingdom,
including Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dundee, Inverness,
Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Liverpool, Manchester,
Birmingham, Sheffield, Bradford, Oldham, Leeds,
Wolverhampton, Newcastle, and Brighton. No such
series of petitions from locally elected bodies has pro-
bably ever been presented to Parliament in favour of
a Franchise Bill. The anti -suffragists have endeavoured
to belittle the significance of these petitions. In an
important official letter to Mr. Asquith, signed by Lord
Cromer, Lady Jersey, Mrs. Humphry Ward, Lord
Curzon, and others, it is stated :

"The councils which have allowed these resolutions to go
through are, in no small degree, dependent for votes upon tne

1 Early History of Charles James Fox, by the Rt. Hon. Sir G. O.
Trevelyan, p. 441).

56 WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE

very women whom the Bill proposes to enfranchise, and it is
most natural that the councillors should shrink from the risk of
offending them"

This is a good specimen of anti-suffrage logic. Women
householders are strongly opposed to their own en-
franchisement ; but Town Councillors who depend upon
the votes of these women are forced to petition in favour
of their enfranchisement because these councillors " shrink
from the risk of offending them."

It is true that Lord Cromer, Lord Curzon, and the
other signatories of the letter go on to say that they
are much better acquainted with the feeling of the
women municipal voters in the various towns than
the men are who have lived in them all their lives,
and have repeatedly stood in them as candidates in
municipal elections. This illustrates the degree of
knowledge possessed by the most distinguished of the
anti-suffragists of the work-a-day world in which
humbler mortals have to live.

Mr. Gladstone said of the House of Lords when they
opposed the Reform Bill of 1884 that they " lived in a
balloon," unconscious of what was happening among
the dim common populations living on the earth. The
same criticism is applicable to the anti -suffragists.
They opened the year 1911 in their Review by saying
that they looked " forward with complete confidence
to the work of saving women from the immeasurable
injury of having their sex brought into the conflict of
political life." This was immediately after the election
of December 1910, during which Mrs. Humphry Ward
had taken an active personal share in her son's electoral
contest in West Hertfordshire ; and during which a
large number of Unionist candidates and others had
had the offer from her publishers of her Letters to my
Friends and Neighbours, written anew for the second
election of 1910, price 3d. each or 1000 copies for 5.
No suffragist blames Mrs. Humphry Ward for her
active interest in politics. Whether people like it or
not, women are taking part in active political work ;
1 Anti-Suffrage Review, December 1910.

THE ANTI-SUFFRAGISTS 57

but to talk of " the immeasurable injury of bringing their
sex into the conflict of political life," and at the same
time to profit by the political knowledge and en-
thusiasm of women is a practical absurdity. All
parties are alike in getting as much work as possible
during an election out of the women who sympathise
with them.

To encourage the political activity of women and
at the same time talk about " protecting women from
the immeasurable injury of having their sex brought
into the conflict of political life," helps one to understand
why Frenchmen say that the English are a nation of
hypocrites.

Some eminent anti-suffragists attacked the Insur-
ance Bill (1911) on the ground that it is " cruelly un-
fair " to women ; others, including some of their most
distinguished women, but no men, sent to the Prime
Minister in July a carefully worded and powerfully
reasoned letter explaining in detail the points in which
they felt that the Bill did less than justice to women.
Space does not permit a detailed examination of the
points raised in this excellent letter, but one sentence
in it must be given, for it contains within itself the gist
of the case for women's sufirage :

" We would strongly urge that instead of meeting these and
similar cases by amending the Bill in the way which was
promised by the Chancellor of the Exchequer on July 10th,
it would be preferable to substitute the insurance which is needed for
that which is not needed."

The unrepresented are always liable to be given what
they do not need rather than what they do need. This,
in one sentence, forms the strength of the case for
women's suffrage. However benevolent men may be
in their intentions, they cannot know what women want
and what suits the necessities of women's lives as well
as women know these things themselves.

58 WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE

CHAPTER VI

THE MILITANT SOCIETIES

" It is a calumny on men to say that they are roused to heroic
action by ease, hope of pleasure sugar plums of any kind.
In the meanest mortal there lies something nobler. Diffi-
culty, abnegation, martyrdom, death, are the allurements
which act upon the heart of man." THOMAS CARLYLE.

IN Chapters II. and III. an outline was given of the
Parliamentary history of women's suffrage between
1867 and 1897. In those thirty years the movement
had progressed until it had reached a point when it
could count upon a majority of suffragists being re-
turned in each successively elected House of Commons.
In 1899 came the South African War, and the main
interest of the nation was concentrated on that struggle
till it was over. A war almost invariably suspends all
progress in domestic and social legislation. Two fires
cannot burn together, and the most ardent of the
suffragists felt that, while the war lasted, it was not a
fitting time to press their own claims and objects.
The war temporarily suspended the progress of the
suffrage movement, but it is probable that it ultimately
strengthened the demand of women for citizenship, for
it has been observed again and again that a war, or
any other event which stimulates national vitality,
and the consciousness of the value of citizenship is
almost certain to be followed by increased vigour in
the suffrage movement, and not infrequently by its
success. For instance, suffrage in Finland in 1907
followed immediately upon the great struggle with
Russia to regain constitutional Uberty ; women as
well as men had thrown themselves into that struggle
and borne the great sacrifices it entailed, and when
Finland wrung from the Czar the granting of the
Constitution, women's suffrage formed an essential
part of it, and was demanded by the almost unanimous

THE MILITANT SOCIETIES 59

voice of the Finnish people. Again, when suffrage was
granted to women in Norway in 1907, it was immediately
after the great outburst of national feeling which led
to the separation from Sweden, and established Norway
as an independent kingdom. Upon the rights and
wrongs of the controversy between the two countries it
is not for us to enter, but the intensity of the feeling in
Norway in favour of separation is undoubted. The women
had shared in the national fervour and in all the work
and sacrifices it entailed. The Parliamentary Suffrage
was granted to women as one of the first Acts of the
Norwegian Parliament.

In the Commonwealth of Australia almost the first
Act of the first Parliament was the enfranchisement of
women. The national feeling of Australia had been
stimulated and the sense of national responsibility
deepened by the events which led to the Federation of
the Independent States of the Australian Continent.
It is true that South Australia and Western Australia
had led the way about women's suffrage before this in
1893 and 1899, but up to the time of the formation of
the Commonwealth there had been no such rapid ex-
tension of the suffrage to women as that which accom-
panied or immediately followed it. 1

The fight for suffrage in the United Kingdom is not
won yet, but it has made enormous progress towards
victory, and this, in my opinion, is in part due to the
quickened sense of national responsibility, the deeper
sense of the value of citizenship which was created by
the South African War. The war in the first instance
originated from the "refusal of the vote to Englishmen
and other " Uitlanders " long settled in the Transvaal.
The newspapers, therefore, both in this country and in
South Africa constantly dwelt on the value and signi-
ficance of the vote. The Spectator once put the point
with great brevity and force when it wrote, " We dwell
so strongly on the franchise because it includes all other
rights, and is the one essential thing." Now this is
either true or untrue ; if true it applies to women as
1 See p. 89.

60 WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE

well as to " Uitlanders." After thinking of the war

its causes the first thing in the morning and the last

thing at night for nearly three years, there were many

. thousands of Englishwomen who asked themselves

why, if the vote to Englishmen in the Transvaal was

I worth 200,000,000 of money and some 30,000 lives,

j it was not also of great value and significance to women

* at home. Why, they said to themselves and to others,

are we to be treated as perpetual " Uitlanders " in the

country of our birth, which we love as well as any

other of its citizens ?

Therefore in the long run the war, though it tem-
porarily caused a suspension of the suffrage agitation,
nourished it at its source, and very shortly after the
declaration of peace it became more active than it had
ever been before. Ever since 1897, when Mr. Faithfull
Begg's Women's Suffrage Bill had been read a second
time by 228 to 157, the enemies of suffrage in the House
of Commons had managed to evade a vote on a direct
issue. The days obtained for Suffrage Bills were ab-
sorbed by the Government or merged into the holidays.
One or other of the hundred ways of burking discussion
open to the experienced Parliamentarian was used.
Nevertheless women's suffrage resolutions were brought
forward in 1904 and 1905 ; that of 1905 was " talked
out."

At the end of 1905 the general public first became
aware of a new element in the suffrage movement.
The Women's Social and Political Union had been
formed by Mrs. and Miss Pankhurst in 1903, but the
" militant movement," with which its name will always
be associated, had not attracted any public notice till
the end of 1905. Its manifestations and multifarious
activities have been set forth in detail by Miss Sylvia
Pankhurst in a book, and are also so well known from
other sources that it is unnecessary to dwell upon
them here. 1 It is enough to say that by adopting
novel and startling methods not at the outset associated

1 See The Suffragette, by Miss E. Sylvia Pankhurst (Gay and
Hancock, 1911).

THE MILITANT SOCIETIES 61

with physical violence or attempts at violence, they
succeeded in drawing a far larger amount of public
attention to the claims of women to representation
than ever had been given to the subject before. These
methods were regarded by many suffragists with strong
aversion, while others watched them with sympathy
and admiration for the courage and self-sacrifice which
these new methods involved. It is notorious that
differences of method separate people from one another
even more acutely than differences of aim. This has
been seen in the history of religion as well as in politics :

" Christians have burnt each other, quite persuaded
That the apostles would have done as they did."

It was a most anxious time for many months when
there seemed a danger that the suffrage cause might
degenerate into futile quarrelling among suffragists
about the respective merits of their different methods,
rather than develop into a larger, broader, and more
widespread movement. This danger has been happily
averted, partly by the good sense of the suffragists
of all parties, who held firmly to the sheet anchor of
the fact that they were all working for precisely the
same thing, the removal of the sex disability in Parlia-
mentary elections, and, therefore, that what united
them was more important than that which separated
them. The formation of the anti-suffrage societies
was also from this point of view most opportune, giving
us all an immediate objective. It was obvious to all
suffragists that they should turn their artillery on
their opponents rather than on each other. Therefore,
while recognising fully all the acute differences which
must exist between the advocates of revolutionary
and constitutional methods, each group went on its
own way ; and the total result has undoubtedly been
an extraordinary growth in the vigour and force of the
suffrage movement all over the country. The most
satisfactory feature of the situation was that however
acute were the differences between the heads of the
different societies, the general mass of suffragists

62 WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE

throughout the country were loyal to the cause by
whomsoever it was represented, just as Italian patriots
in the great days of the Risorgimento supported the
unity of Italy, whether promoted by Cavour, Garibaldi,
or Mazzini. 1

The National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies
endeavoured to steer an even keel. They never
weakened in their conviction that constitutional agita-
tion was not only right in itself, but would prove far
more effective in the long run than any display of
physical violence, as a means of converting the electorate,
the general public, and, consequently, Parliament and
the Government, to a belief in women's suffrage. But
the difficulties for a long time were very great. A few
of our own members attacked us because we were not
militant ; others resigned because they disapproved of
the militantism which we had repudiated. On one
such occasion a high dignitary of the Church of England,
who is also a distinguished historian, wrote to resign
his position as vice-president of one of our societies
because he highly disapproved of the recent action of
the members of militant societies. The honorary
secretary replied, asking him if he was also relinquishing
his connection with Christianity, as she gathered from
his writings that he strongly disapproved of what some
Christians had done in the supposed interests of
Christianity. It is to the credit of both that the
threatened resignation was withdrawn. We tried to
comfort and help the weak-hearted by reminding them,
in the words of Viscount Morley, that " No reformer is
fit for his task if he suffers himself to be frightened by
the excesses of an extreme wing." 2

Personally it was to myself the most difficult time
of my forty years of suffrage work. I was helped
a good deal by recalling a saying of my husband's
about the Irish situation in the 'eighties, when he was
heard saying to himself, " Just keep on and do what

1 See Garibaldi and the Making of Italy, by G. M. Trevelyan,
p. 3.

2 Morley's Life of Gladstone, vol. iii. p. 371.

THE MILITANT SOCIETIES 63

is right." I am far from claiming that we actually
accomplished the difficult feat of doing what was right, -
but I believe we tried to. But the brutal severity with
which some of the militant suffragists were treated
gave suffragists of all parties another subject on which
they were in agreement.

Minor breaches of the law, such as waving flags and
making speeches in the lobbies of the Houses of Parlia-
ment, were treated more severely than serious crime
on the part of men has often been. A sentence of three
months' imprisonment as an ordinary offender was
passed in one case against a young girl who had done
nothing except to decline to be bound over to keep the
peace which she was prepared to swear she had not
broken. The turning of the hose upon a suffrage
prisoner in her cell in a midwinter night, and all the
anguish of the hunger strike and forcible feeding are
other examples. All through 1908 and 1909 a dead set
was made upon law-breakers, real or supposed, who
were obscure and unknown ; while people with well-
known names and of good social position were treated
with leniency, and in some cases were allowed to do
almost anything without arrest or punishment. 1

The militant societies split into two in 1907, when
the Freedom League was formed under the Presidency
of Mrs. Despard. Shortly after this both the militant
groups abandoned the plan upon which for the first
few years they had worked that of suffering violence,
but using none. Stone-throwing of a not very formid-
able kind was indulged in, and personal attacks upon
Ministers of the Grown were attempted. 2 These new
developments necessitated, in the opinion of the National
Union of Women's Suffrage Societies, the publication
of protests expressing their grave and strong objection

1 I have in my possession positive proof that orders were given
to the police not to arrest a particular lady whose name is well
known and highly respected in every part of the country.

2 I am requested by the Women's Freedom League to state
that they have never resorted to stone -throwing or to personal
assaults.

64 WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE

to the use of personal violence as a means of political
propaganda. These protests were published in
November 1908 and October 1909. The second, and
shortest, was as follows :

" That the Council of the National Union of Women's Suffrage
Societies strongly condemns the use of violence in political
propaganda, and being convinced that the true way of advocating
the cause of Women's Suffrage is by energetic, law-abiding
propaganda, reaffirms its adherence to constitutional principles,
aud instructs the Executive Committee and the Societies to
communicate this resolution to the Press."

To this was added :

" That while condemning methods of violence the Council of
the N.U.W.S.S. also protests most earnestly against the manner
in which the whole Suffrage agitation has been handled by the
responsible Government."

The National Union has not thought it necessary
publicly to protest against every individual act of
violence. Having definitely and in a full Council,
where all the societies in the Union are represented in
proportion to their membership, put upon record that
they " strongly condemn the use of violence in political
propaganda," it appears unnecessary to asseverate that
they condemn individual acts of violence. There is a
remarkable passage in one of Cromwell's letters ex-
plaining why that which is gained by force is of little
value in comparison with that which is conceded to
the claims of justice and reason. " Things obtained
by force," he wrote, " though never so good in them-
selves, would be both less to their honour and less likely
to last than concessions made to argument and reason."
" What we gain in a free way is better than twice
as much in a forced, and will be more truly ours and
our posterity's." 2 The practical example of male re-
volutionists is often cited to the contrary ; but with
all due respect to the other sex, is not their example
too often an example of how not to do it ? The Russian

1 A third protest was published in December 1911.

2 Morley's Life of Oliver Cromuxtt, pp. 232-3.

THE MILITANT SOCIETIES 65

revolution, for instance, seems to have thrown the
political development of Russia into a vicious circle :
" we murder you because you and your like have
murdered us," and thus it goes on in an endless vista
like one mirror reflecting another. I admit fully that
the kind and degree of violence carried out by the
so-called " suffragettes " is of the mildest description ;
a few panes of glass have been broken, and meetings
have been disturbed, but no one has suffered in life or
limb ; our great movement towards freedom has not
been stained by serious crime. Compared with the
Irish Nationalist movement in the 'eighties, or the
recent unrest in India, the so-called " violence " of the
suffragettes is absolutely negligible in degree, except as
an indication of their frame of mind.

Far more violence has been suffered by the suffragettes
than they have caused their opponents to suffer. The
violence of the stewards at Liberal meetings in throwing
out either men or women who dared to ask questions
about women's suffrage has been most discreditable.
It may be hoped it has been checked by an action
claiming damages brought on at the Leeds Assizes in
March 1911 on behalf of a man who had had his leg
broken by the violence with which he had been thrown
out of a meeting at Bradford by Liberal stewards,
in the previous November. The judge ruled that his
ejection from the meeting was in itself unlawful, and
the only question he left to the jury was to assess
damages. The jury awarded the plaintiff 100 ; this
decision was appealed against, but the appeal was
withdrawn in October 191 1. 1

Mark Twain once wrote of the women suffragists in
his own country, " For forty years they have swept
an imposingly large number of unfair laws from the
statute books of America. In this brief time these
serfs have set themselves free essentially. Men could
not have done as much for themselves in that time without

1 See Summing up of Mr. Justice Avory in Hawkins v. Muff case.
A Warning to Liberal Stewards, published by the Men's Political
Union, 1911.

66 WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE

bloodshed, at least they never have, and that is an
argument that they didn't know how." 1

Perhaps the mild degree of violence perpetrated by
the suffragettes was intended to lower our sex pride ;
we were going to show the world how to gain reforms
without violence, without killing people and blowing
up buildings, and doing the other silly things that men
have done w r hen they wanted the laws altered. Lord
Acton once wrote : " It seems to be a law of political
evolution that no great advance in human freedom can
be gained except after the display of some kind of
violence." We wanted to show that we could make
the grand advance in human freedom, at which we
aimed without the display of any kind of violence. We
have been disappointed in that ambition, but we may
still lay the flattering unction to our souls that the
violence offered has not been formidable, and that the
fiercest of the suffragettes have been far more ready to
suffer pain than to inflict it. What those endured who
underwent the hunger strike and the anguish of forcible
feeding can hardly be overestimated. Their courage
made a very deep impression on the public and touched
the imagination of the whole country.

Of course a very different measure is applied to men
and women in these matters. Women are expected to
be able to bear every kind of injustice without even
" a choleric word " ; if men riot when they do not
get what they want they are leniently judged, and
excesses of which they may be guilty are excused in
the House of Commons, in the press, and on the bench
on the plea of political excitement. Compare the line
of the press on the strike riots in Wales and elsewhere
with the tone of the same papers on the comparatively
infinitesimal degree of violence shown by the militant
suffragists. No one has been more severe in his con-
demnation of militantism than Mr. Churchill, but
speaking in the House of Commons in August 8, 1911,
about the violent riots in connection with Parliamentary
Reform in 1832, he is reported to have said : " It is true

1 More Tramps Abroad, by Mark Twain, p. 208.

THE MILITANT SOCIETIES 67

there was rioting in 1832, but the people had no votes
then, and had very little choice as to the alternatives they
should adopt." If this is a good argument, why not
extend its application to the militant suffragists ?

The use of physical violence by the militant societies
was not the only difference between them and the
National Union. The two groups between 1905 and
1911 adopted different election policies. The militants
believed, and they had much ground for their belief,
that the only chance of a Women's Suffrage Bill being
carried into law lay in its adoption by one or other of
the great political parties as a party question. The
private member, they urged, had no longer a chance
of passing an important measure ; it must be backed
by a Government. Hence they concluded that the
individual member of Parliament was of no particular
consequence, and they concentrated their efforts at
each electoral contest in endeavouring to coerce the
Government of the day to take up the suffrage cause.
Their cry in every election was " Keep the Liberal out,"
not, as they asserted, from party motives, but because
the Government of the day, and the Government alone,
had the power to pass a Suffrage Bill ; and as long as
any Government declined to take up suffrage they would
have to encounter all the opposition which the militants ,
could command. In carrying out this policy they
opposed the strongest supporters of women's suffrage j
if they were also supporters of the Government.

The National Union adopted a different election
policy that of obtaining declarations of opinion from
all candidiates at each election and supporting the man,
independent of party, who gave the most satisfactory
assurances of support. In the view of the National
Union this policy was infinitely more adapted to the
facts of the situation than that adopted by the militants.
What was desired was that the electorate should be
educated in the principles of women's suffrage, and
made to understand what women wanted, and why
they wanted it ; and electors were much more likely to
approach the subject in a reasonable frame of mind

68 WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE

if they had not been thrown into a violent rage by what
they considered an unfair attack upon their own party.
To this it was replied that only the Liberals were enraged
and that the Conservatives would be correspondingly
conciliated. It did not appear, however, that this was
actually the case. The Conservatives were not slow to
see that their immunity from attack was only temporary ;
when their turn came to have a Government in power
the cry would be changed to " Keep the Conservative
out." And then having profoundly irritated one half
of the electorate, the militants would go on to irritate
the other half. What the National Union aimed at was
the creation in each constituency of a Women's Suffrage
society on non-party lines, which should by meetings,
articles, and educational propaganda of all kinds create
so strong a feeling in favour of women's suffrage as to
make party managers on both sides realise, in choosing
candidates, that they would have a better chance of
success with a man who was a suffragist than with a
man who was an anti-suffragist.

The whole Parliamentary situation was altered when
in November 1910, and again more explicitly in June and
August 1911, Mr. Asquith promised on behalf of the
Government that on certain conditions they would
grant time for all the stages of a Women's Suffrage Bill
during this Parliament. This removed the basis on
which the militant societies had founded their election
policy ; it no longer was an impossibility for a private
member to carry a Reform Bill, and it became obvious
that the road to success lay in endeavouring, as far as
possible, to promote the return of men of all parties to
the House of Commons who were genuine suffragists.
The Women's Social and Political Union and the Free-
dom League appreciated the importance of this change,
and early in 1911 they definitely suspended militant
action, and abandoned their original election policy.
There was thus harmony in methods as well as unity
of aims between the Suffrage Societies until this har-
mony was disturbed by the events to be described in
the next chapter.

RECENT DEVELOPMENTS 69

CHAPTER VII

BECENT DEVELOPMENTS

* If a great change is to be made in human affairs, the minds of
men will be fitted to it ; the general opinions and feelings
will draw that way. Every fear^ every hope will forward it,
and then they who persist in opposing this mighty current in
human affairs, will appear rather to resist the decrees of
Providence itself, than the mere designs of men. They will
not be resolute and firm, but perverse and obstinate."
BURKE (Thoughts on French Affairs).

THE Parliament elected in January 1906 contained an
overwhelming Liberal majority;" it also contained
more than 4XX3 members, belonging to all parties, who
were pledged to the principle of women's suffrage. A
considerable number of these had expressed their ad-
herence to the movement in their election addresses.

Mr. (now Viscount) Haldane had said at Reading,
just before the election, that he considered women's
suffrage not only desirable, but necessary, if Parliament
would grapple successfully with the difficult problems
of social reform. Mr. Lloyd George stigmatised the
exclusion of women from the right of voting as "an act
of intolerable injustice." Sir Henry Campbell Banner-
man, the Prime Minister, who received a deputation
containing representatives of all the suffrage societies
in May 1906, said that they "had made out a con-
clusive and irrefutable case." Still no promise of
Government help for the passing of a Suffrage Bill
was forthcoming ; the difference of opinion in both
parties on the subject of women's suffrage cut across
all party ties, and thus hindered Government action.
It was obvious that no private member, in the changed
conditions of modern politics, could pass so important
a Bill without Government help ; and no promise of
this help could be obtained. The first debate on a
Women's Suffrage Bill in the new Parliament took

70 WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE

place in 1907, when the speaker refused to grant the
closure and the Bill was talked out. Mr. Stanger,
K.C., M.P., drew a good place in the ballot in 1908, and
his Bill for the simple removal of the sex disability
from existing franchises came on for second reading in
February. The closure having been granted, the
division resulted in the great majority for the Bill of
273 to 94. But no further progress was made.

In May of the same year a deputation of Liberal M.P.'s
waited on Mr. Asquith, who had then become Prime
Minister, to press him for aid for passing into law a
Women's Suffrage Bill. He admitted that about two-
thirds of his Cabinet and a majority of his party were
favourable to women's suffrage, and while maintaining
his own continued opposition to it, made a statement
that his Government intended to introduce a measure
of electoral reform, and that if an amendment for the
admission of women were proposed on democratic
lines, his Government as a Government would not
oppose it. This was a great advance on the position
occupied by Mr. Gladstone in 1884, when he vehemently
opposed a women's suffrage amendment to the Reform
Bill of that year. All the organs of public opinion
without exception recognised that this promise ad-
vanced the movement for women's suffrage to a higher
place in practical politics than it had ever before
occupied. The next year, 1909, Mr. Geoffrey Howard,
M.P., and other Liberal members abandoned the non-
party Women's Suffrage Bill which had hitherto always
been introduced, and brought forward a Bill for what
was practically universal adult suffrage ; this course
alienated all Conservative and much moderate Liberal
support, and was taken in the face of the strongly ex-
pressed protests of all the suffrage societies. The
division on the second reading showed a majority of
only 35 or less than one-fifth of the majority for the more
moderate Bill. The supporters fell in numbers from
273 to 159, and the opposition increased from 94 to 124,
and this in a House of Commons with the immense
combined Liberal, Labour, and Nationalist majority of

RECENT DEVELOPMENTS 71

513 to 157. In the House of Commons elected suc-
cessively in January and December 1910 the same com-
bination of parties had a majority of about 125, as
compared with a majority of 356 in the Parliament of
1906. These figures are most eloquent of the real
political situation, and explain why genuine suffragists
who want w r omen's names on the register before the
next election, supported, in the absence of Government
aid, a measure on moderate lines calculated to unite the
greatest amount of support from all parts of the House,
rather than a Bill drafted on extreme party lines, which
would certainly alienate Conservative and moderate
Liberal support. If an Adult Suffrage Bill could only
obtain a majority of 35 when the Government majority
was 356, it is easy to predict where it would be when
the Government majority was reduced to 125.

In December 1909 the Government announced an
immediate dissolution of Parliament. For the first
time in the history of the women's suffrage movement
the political campaign preceding a general election
was opened with important declarations from the
Prime Minister and other members of his Government
on the subject of the enfranchisement of women.

At the great meeting of his party at the Albert Hall,
December 10, 1909, after indicating his own continued
opposition to women's suffrage, Mr. Asquith said :
" Nearly two years ago I declared on behalf of the
present Government that in the event, which we then
contemplated, of our bringing in a Reform Bill, we
should make the insertion of a suffrage amendment
an open question for the House of Commons to decide
(cheers) . Our friends and fellow- workers of the Women's
Liberal Federation (cheers) have asked me to say that
my declaration survives the expiring Parliament, and
will hold good in its successor, and that their cause, so
far as the Government is concerned, shall be no worse
off in the new Parliament than it would have been in
the old. I have no hesitation in acceding to that
request (cheers). The Government . . . has no dis-
position or desire to burke this question ; it is clearly

72 WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE

an issue on which the new House of Commons ought to
be given an opportunity to express its views/'

On the same day Sir Edward Grey, at Alnwick,
reiterated his continued support of women's suffrage.
In reply to a question, he said : " If that means, am I
in favour of a reasonable Bill for giving votes to women,
I have always supported that Biff, and I don't think it
right to change my opinions because wiiat I believe to
be a small minority among women has been very violent
and unreasonable." Mr. Winston Churchill, a few days
earlier, expressed a similar opinion to that of Sir Edward
Grey.

The anti -suffragists are never weary of asserting that
women's suffrage has never been before the country
as a practical political issue. It is difficult to imagine
what being " before the country " consists in, if the
foregoing declarations on the part of the leaders of the
party in power do not indicate that a question has
reached this stage. At the general election of January
1910, 245 candidates mentioned in their election ad-
dresses that they supported the extension of the
Parliamentary franchise to women. 1 In this election
the National Union organised a voters' petition in
support of women's suffrage. The signatures, amount-
ing to over 280,000, were nearly all collected on polling
day from electors who had just recorded their own
vote. In some constituencies, especially in the North
of England, hardly a man refused his signature ; the
polling number was in each case attached to the signature
as a means of identification, and as a guarantee of good
faith. No objection has ever been made to our petitions,
or signatures disallowed, as in the case of some of the
anti-suffrage petitions, on the ground that there were
pages of signatures all in the same handwriting.

An extremely important event in the development of
the suffrage movement in the field of practical politics
took place almost simultaneously with the January 1910
election. This was the formation of the Conciliation

1 See the Annual Report of the National Union of Women's
Suffrage Societies presented in March 1910.

RECENT DEVELOPMENTS 73

Committee. It was recognised on all hands that
women's suffrage was in an unprecedented Parliamentary
position ; a large majority of members of Parliament
were pledged to it, but it was not backed by either of
the great parties, and consequently lacked the driving
power to get through the stages necessary to convert a
Bill into an Act of Parliament. This was in part due
to differences as to the sort of women's suffrage which
members of Parliament were prepared to accept. The
Liberals objected to a Bill in the old lines based on
the removal of the sex disability, dreading that such a
measure would be used as a means of multiplying plural
voting, and would thus probably tell heavily against
the Liberal party. Conservatives and moderate
Liberals objected to the immense addition to the
electorate which would be caused by adult suffrage.
The Conciliation Committee was formed with the view
of reconciling these differences, by finding a Bill which
all suffragists could support. With the exception of
the chairman, the Earl of Lytton, and the Hon. Secretary,
Mr. H. N. Brailsford, it consisted entirely of members
of the House of Commons favourable to women's
suffrage, and representing the parties Liberal, Con-
servative, Labour, and Nationalist into which the
House is divided. As the result of the work of this
committee a Bill was arrived at, to which all the parties
represented on the committee could agree.

The Bill was drafted on the lines of simple Household
Suffrage with a clause expressly laying down that
marriage was not to be a disqualification. It has never
been contended that this is a perfect Bill ; it was the
result of a compromise between the different parties
in the House of Commons. The Conservatives and
moderate Liberals objected to adult suffrage ; the
Liberals and their allies objected to the old suffrages
being simply opened to women for the reasons just
indicated ; therefore, in deference to Liberal objections,
the freeholders, occupiers, service, university, lodger,
and other franchises were abandoned in the case of
women, and in deference to Conservative objections

74 WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE

adult suffrage was not proposed. The Bill which was
agreed upon was based upon the democratic principle
of Household Suffrage, of which the country had had
more than forty years' experience as far as women were
concerned in municipal elections. The principle of
the Conciliation Bill is to make Household Suffrage a
reality. Mrs. Humphry Ward condemns this measure
as " absurd." l Wherein its absurdity consists she
does not explain. Household Suffrage was the main
sheet anchor of all the great Reform Bills of the last
century ; it is the basis of most of the local franchises.
It is by far the most important, numerically, of all the
various existing franchises. An interesting return is
published every year of the total number of Parlia-
mentary voters, indicating the qualifications under
which they vote. That dated February 28, 1911,
shows that in the whole United Kingdom there were
7,705,602 registered electors; of these 6,716,742 voted
as occupiers and householders, while less than 1,000,000
represented the total of all the other franchises
put together. The Bill, therefore, which gives women
Household Suffrage admits them to by far the most
important suffrage which men enjoy. Personally many
suffragists would prefer a less restricted measure, but
the immense importance and gain to our movement in
getting the most effective of all the existing franchises
thrown open to women cannot be exaggerated. This
was immediately appreciated by all the suffrage
societies and also by the Women's Liberal Federation,
all of which gave hearty and enthusiastic support to
the Bill, known as the Conciliation Bill, to extend
Household Suffrage to women. 2

1 Standard, Oct. 17, 1911.

2 See resolution adopted by the executive committee of the
Women's Liberal Federation, quoted in Standard, October 30, 1911 :

"That . . . the executive resolves that until definite promises are
made of a Government Reform Bill including women they will
support by all means in their power the Bill promoted by the
Conciliation Committee and will pursue with regard to amendments
to that Bill such a policy as circumstances show to be most likely
to secure for it a substantial third reading majority."

RECENT DEVELOPMENTS 75

The Conciliation Committee and the suffrage societies
successfully refuted the charge made against the Con-
ciliation Bill that it was undemocratic. It would, if
passed, enfranchise approximately 1,000,000 women, and
it was proved conclusively, by careful analysis of the
social status of women householders in a large and
representative group of constituencies, that the over-
whelming majority of these would be working-class
women. In London (1908) the proportion of working-
class women was shown to be 87 per cent., in Dundee
(1910), 89 per cent., Bangor and Carnarvon (1910),
75 per cent. The average in about fifty representative
constituencies, where the investigation was conducted
under the auspices of the Independent Labour Party,
was shown to be 82 per cent. The Bill gave no repre-
sentation to property whatever. The only qualifica-
tion which it recognised was that of the resident
householder.

This Bill, drawn in such a way as not to admit of
amendment, was introduced by Mr. Shackleton, Labour
member for Clitheroe in the new Parliament, elected in
January 1910. Two days of Government time were
given for its second reading in July of that year. It
was the first time a Women's Suffrage Bill had been
the subject of a full-dress debate. Parliamentary
leaders on both sides took part in it, and the voting
was left to the free judgment of the House of Commons.
Among the supporters of the Bill were Mr. (now Viscount)
Haldane, Mr. Arthur Balfour, Mr. Philip Snowden, and
Mr. W. Redmond, while among its opponents were
Mr. Asquith, Mr. Austen Chamberlain, Mr. F. E. Smith,
and Mr. Haviland Burke. Mr. Lloyd George and Mr.
Winston Churchill also vehemently opposed the Bill,
not on the ground of opposition to women's en-
franchisement, but because of the alleged undemocratic
character of this particular measure, and because it
was introduced in a form that did not admit of amend-
ment. The division resulted in the large majority of
110 for the second reading, a figure in excess of anything
which the Government could command for their chief

76 WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE

party measures. An analysis of the division list gave
the following results, omitting pairs of whom there
were 24 :

For the Bill Against the Bill

Liberals ... 161 , 60

Unionists ... 87 113

Labour ... 31 2

Nationalists . . 20 14

299 189

Notwithstanding this large majority the Bill was
destined to make no further progress that session ; but
the interval between the second reading and the as-
sembling of Parliament for the autumn session was
utilised for the organisation of the most remarkable
series of public demonstrations of an entirely peaceful
character which have probably ever been held in this
country in support of any extension of the suffrage. It
was estimated that no fewer than 4000 public meetings
were held in the four months between July and
November ; the largest halls all over the country w r ere
filled again and again ; the Albert Hall was filled twice
in one week ; the largest meeting ever held in Hyde
Park, when more than half a million of people were
assembled, w r as organised by the Women's Social and
Political Union. It was at this moment that the
remarkable movement, already referred to in Chapter V.,
was begun the series of petitions from Town and other
locally elected Councils for the speedy passing into law
of the measure known as the Conciliation Bill. The
city of Glasgow led the way with a unanimous vote of
its Council.

During this autumn Sir Edward Grey, Mr. Birrell,
and Mr. Bunciman made public declarations in support
of women's suffrage, and said that in their opinion
facilities for the further progress of the Bill and its
passage into law ought to be provided in 1911. A few
months later Lord Haldane said he hoped " the Bill
would pass quickly." The most important practical

RECENT DEVELOPMENTS 77

gain for the suffrage movement was, however, achieved
in November 1910. Early in the month Mr. Asquith
had announced the intention of his Government again
immediately to dissolve Parliament ; and on the 22nd,
in reply to a question in the House, he said that the
Government would, " if they were still in power, give
facilities in the next Parliament for effectively pro-
ceeding with a [Women's Suffrage] Bill, if so framed as
to admit of free amendment." These words gave to
suffragists the key which enabled them to unlock the
doors which barred their progress. The more astute
political minds among the anti-suffragists immediately
saw the importance of this promise. The Times,
November 24, announced that it made women's
suffrage an issue before the country at the coming
election, and added, " If the election confirms the
Government in power the new Parliament mil be con-
sidered to have received a mandate on the subject of
women's suffrage" x

The feather-heads could see nothing of any im-
portance in this promise, and the Anti-Suffrage Review
allowed itself the treat of entitling an article " Nod and
wink promises." All suffragists of any experience,
however, felt that their cause had received an im-
mensely important impetus, and that they were gaining
ground not by painful inches but by furlongs. When the
session of 1911 opened, the Conciliation Committee was
again formed, and good luck smiled upon its members,
for three of them drew the first, second, and third places
in the ballot, and thus secured an excellent place for
the second reading of the Bill. The member in charge
was Sir George Kemp, who sits for N.W. Manchester.
The Bill was, of course, drawn so as to admit of free
amendment. The second reading was on May 5, 1911,
and there voted for it 255, and against it 88. The
majority of 110 in 1910 had thus grown in 1911 to 167.
There were 55 pairs ; but the number of members
wishing to pair in favour of the Bill was so great that

1 See " Political Notes," Times, November 24, 1910.

78 WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE

the demand could not be satisfied. Six of these
to the papers explaining their position. Adding the
pairs, and those who desired to pair, but were unable
to do so, the analysis works out as follows :

For the Bill Against the Bill
Liberals ... 174 48

Conservatives. . 79 86

Labour .... 32

Nationalists . . 31 9

31? 143~

Almost immediately after this an announcement was
made from the front bench that Mr. Asquith's promise
of the previous November that an opportunity should
be given for proceeding with the Bill in all its stages
would be fulfilled during the session of 1912. There
was for a time some fencing and difficulty over the
point whether this promise applied exclusively to the
Conciliation Bill or to any Women's Suffrage Bill which
might obtain a place in the ballot for second reading.
All doubt on this subject was finally set at rest on
August 23, by a letter from Mr. Asquith to Lord
Lytton, in which the Prime Minister stated that the
promises were given in regard to the Conciliation Bill,
and that they would be strictly adhered to both in
letter and in spirit.

This, then, was the position of the suffrage question
between the close of the summer session and the be-
ginning of November 1911. All the suffrage societies
were working in complete harmony on the same lines
and for the same Bill. The militant societies had
suspended militant tactics, and also their anti-govern-
ment election policy. The Women's Liberal Federation,
whose co-operation was of great and obvious importance,
were uniting their efforts with those of the suffrage
societies, when on November 7, a bombshell was
dropped among them in the speech of the Prime Minister,
replying to a deputation from the People's Suffrage
Federation, who presented a memorial asking for adult
suffrage. Mr. Asquith then announced that it was the

RECENT DEVELOPMENTS 79

intention of his Government to introduce during the
coming session (1912) the Electoral Reform Bill, which
he had foreshadowed in 1908, that all existing franchises
would be swept away, plural voting abolished, and the
period of residence reduced. The new franchise was
to be based on citizenship, and votes were to be given
" to citizens of full age and competent understanding."
But no place was found within the four corners of the
Bill for the enfranchisement of women. Mr. Asquith
reiterated his promise of facilities for the Conciliation
Bill, and then merely dismissed the subject of women's
suffrage with the remark that his opinions upon it were
well known. If it had been his object to enrage every
women's suffragist to the point of frenzy, he could not
have acted with greater perspicacity. Years of un-
exampled effort and self-sacrifice had been expended by
women to force upon the Government the enfranchise-
ment of women, and when the Prime Minister spoke the
only promise he made was to give more votes to men.
Mrs. Bernard Shaw exactly expressed the sentiments of
women's suffragists, whether militant or non-militant,
when she wrote that Mr. Asquith's speech filled her with f
" an impulse of blind rage " ; she felt she had been !
personally insulted, and that he had said to her in
effect " that) the vilest male wretch who can contrive
to keep a house of ill-fame shall have a vote, and that
the noblest woman in England shall not have one be-
cause she is a female " (The Times, November 21, 1911).
It is never safe to act under an impulse of blind rage,
and very soon a closer Imowledge of the actual facts
surrounding and explaining the situation brought the
conviction home to many of us, indeed it may be stated
to the whole body of suffragists with one important
exception, 1 that the new situation created by Mr.
Asquith's speech, so far from decreasing the chances
of success for women's suffrage in 1912 had very greatly
strengthened them. First of all we were cheered by

1 The Woman's Social and Political Union dissented from this
view. They resumed militant tactics, and scenes of considerable
disorder occurred on November 21 and November 29, 1911.

80 WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE

the courageous and outspoken remonstrances on behalf
of w men made by The Manchester Guardian and The
N.ation. The Manchester Guardian, (November 9, 1911),
said that the exclusion of women would be "an outrage
and, we hope, an impossibility. ... No Government
calling itself Liberal could so far betray Liberal principles
without incurring deep and lasting discredit and ultimate
disaster." The Labour party, through its chairman,
Mr. Ramsay MacDonald, M.P., also spoke out very
plainly. " We shall take care," he said, " that the
Manhood Suffrage Bill is not used to destroy the success
of the women's agitation, because we have to admit
that it has been the women's agitation that has brought the
question of the franchise both for men and women to the
front at the present time." Like other experienced
Parliamentarians, he advised us to hold the Govern-
ment to their pledges about the Conciliation Bill until
we had actually secured something better (The Man-
chester Guardian, November 9, 1911).

Then we began to hear from those we knew we could
trust of meetings that were being held of suffrage
members of the Government to decide upon a plan of
action, so as to secure for women a better chance of
enfranchisement through the operation of an amend-
ment to the Government Bill than we could have if we
relied upon the Conciliation Bill alone. An invitation
was received from the Prime Minister to all the suffrage
societies to attend a deputation on the subject. The
full report of that deputation was in all the papers of
November 18, 1911. It is sufficient here to say that
when Mr. Asquith spoke he acknowledged the strength
and intensity of the demand for women's suffrage, and
admitted that in opposing it he was in a minority both
in his Cabinet and in his party ; finally, and most
important of all, he added that although he could not
initiate and propose the change which women were
seeking, he was prepared to bow to, and acquiesce in,
the deliberate judgment of the House of Commons, and
that it was quite in accordance with the best traditions
of English public life that he should act thus. A great

RECENT DEVELOPMENTS 81

majority of those who were present thought that the
Prime Minister had recognised that women's suffrage
was inevitable, and that it would not be for the benefit
of his party that he should withstand to the last this
great advance in human freedom.

Mr. Asquith gave positive and definite answers in
the affirmative to the four questions which were
asked by the National Union of Women's Suffrage
Societies :

1. Is it the intention of the Government that the Reform Bill
shall go through all its stages in 1912 ?

2. Will the Bill be drafted in such a way as to admit of any
amendments introducing women on other terms than men ?

3. Will the Government undertake not to oppose such amend-
ments ?

4. Will the Government regard any amendment enfranchising
woman which is carried as an integral part of the Bill in
all its stages ?

Almost immediately after this Mr. Lloyd George
authorised the public announcement that he was
himself prepared to move the women's suffrage amend-
ment to the Reform Bill, or, if it was thought best in
the interests of women's suffrage, he would be pleased
to stand aside in favour of Sir Edward Grey or of some
leading Conservative. It has been indicated very
plainly that the amendment Mr. Lloyd George himself
favours will be one for the enfranchisement of house-
holders and wives of householders. A Bill to this effect
has been some time before Parliament, and is familiarly
known as Dickinson, No. 2; it enacts that when a
husband and wife reside together in premises for which,
under the existing law, the husband is entitled to vote,
the wife shall also be entitled to vote as a joint-occupier.
There is a parallel for a provision of this kind in the
existing franchise law of Norway. Sir Edward Grey,
Mr. Lloyd George, Mr. Ramsay MacDonald, and other
suffragists in and out of the House of Commons concur
in the opinion that the present situation gives our
movement almost a certainty of success in the session
of 1912.

p

82 WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE

Mr. Lloyd George opened his campaign for women's
suffrage in an important speech at Bath on November
24, 1911. It was a men's meeting, the occasion being
the Annual Congress of the Liberal Federation. He
was received with enthusiasm and made a powerful
and well-reasoned speech in favour of the enfranchise-
ment of women. This was followed in December 16 by
a meeting in London of the Women's Liberal Federation
addressed by Sir Edward Grey and Mr. Lloyd George. 1
The former dwelt upon the reasons which weighed with
him in favour of the representation of women, and in-
dicated that the amendment to the Reform Bill which
he favoured w r ould be on the lines of Women's Suffrage
in Norway, i.e. not Adult Suffrage, but suffrage for
women householders, including wives (as indicated on
p. 81). Mr. Lloyd George dwelt on the essential partner-
ship of men and women in all the greatest things in
human life, and urged that this partnership should be
extended to politics. Thus the year 1911 ended with
every prospect of a hard won Parliamentary victory
for women's suffrage in 1912. Women's suffrage always
has been, and will remain, a non-party question.
The Conservative and Unionist Women's Franchise
Association is working as keenly as any of the other
suffrage societies. We shall not succeed in 1912 unless
we are successful in attracting the support of Conser-
vatives as well as Liberals and Radicals. To aid us in
the final struggle it is of no little value that we have
the promise of a week's Government time for the Con-
ciliation Bill, if our hopes of carrying a satisfactory
amendment to the Reform Bill should be frustrated.

We are on the eve of the fulfilment of our hopes.
The goal towards which many of us have been striving
for nearly half a century is in sight. I appeal to each
and all of my fellow-suffragists not to be over confident,
but so to act as if the success of the suffrage cause de-
pended on herself alone. And even if our anticipated

1 These speeches can be obtained from the Women's Liberal
Federation, 2 Victoria Street, London, S.W.

RECENT DEVELOPMENTS 83

victory should be once more delayed, I appeal to them
again not to despond but to stand firm and fast, and be
prepared to work on as zealously and as steadfastly as
of old.

A splendid lesson reaches us from America. The
great victory for women's suffrage in California in
October 1911 was at first reported to be a defeat. A
group of the leaders, including Dr. Anna Shaw, had
been sitting up to the small hours of the morning in
the New York Women's Suffrage Office, receiving news
from California, 3000 miles away. The first returns
were so bad that it looked as if nothing could save the
situation ; and the grief was all the greater because
victory had been confidently counted on. Dr. Anna
Shaw went away in deep despondency. Presently
she came back saying she could not sleep, and walking
backwards and forwards in the office, she explained
a new plan of campaign which her fertile brain had
already originated. This is the spirit which is uncon-
querable and it is our spirit too.

He who runs may read the signs of the times. Every-
thing points to the growing volume and force of the
women's movement. Even if victory should be delayed
it cannot be delayed long. The suffragists ought to be
the happiest of mankind, if happiness has been correctly
defined as the perpetual striving for an object of supreme
excellence and constantly making a nearer approach
to it.

A BRIEF REVIEW

OF THE

WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE MOVEMENT
SINCE ITS BEGINNING IN 1832

Reprinted with abbreviations, by kind permission of the

National Union of Women' 's Suffrage Societies

14 Great Smith Street, Westminster

)VE-

HISTORY OF THE WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE MO
MENT IN PARLIAMENT

IN 1832, the word " male " introduced into the Reform
Act (before " person ") restricted the Parliamentary
franchise to men, and debarred women from its use.

1850, Lord Brougham's Act came into operation,
which ruled that, in the law of the United Kingdom,
" words importing the masculine gender shall be deemed
to include females, unless the contrary is expressly
provided."

In 1867, John Stuarfc Mill moved an amendment to
the Representation of the People Bill (Clause 4), to
leave out the word " man " and substitute " person."
This amendment was lost by a majority of 123.

In 1868, the judges in the Chorlton v. longs case ruled
that in the case of the Parliamentary franchise, the
word " man " does not include " woman " when re-
ferring to privileges granted by the State.

Since 1869, Bills and Resolutions have been constantly
before the House of Commons. Debates took place in
1870 (twice), 1871, 1872, 1873, 1875, 1876, 1877, 1878,
1879, 1883, 1884, 1886, 1892, 1897, 1904, 1905, 1908
(twice), 1910, 1911.

Altogether, besides resolutions, thirteen Bills have

84

WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE 85

been introduced into the House of Commons, and
seven passed their second reading, i.e. in the years
1870, 1886, 1897, 1908, 1909, 1910, 1911. There has
been a majority in the House of Commons in favour of
women's suffrage since 1886.

FORMATION OF THE CONCILIATION COMMITTEE

In 1910 the Conciliation Committee was formed in
the House of Commons. With the exception of the
chairman, the Earl of Lytton, and the Hon. Secretary,
Mr. Brailsford, it consisted of members of the House
of Commons representative of all the political parties.
This committee drafted a Bill which extended the Parlia-
mentary franchise to women householders (about one
million in all). This Bill, popularly known as the
" Conciliation Bill," was introduced into the House of
Commons by Mr. Shackleton. Two days of Government
time were allotted to it, and on July 13, 1910, it
passed its second reading by a majority of 110, a larger
majority than the Government got for any of its
measures, including the Budget.

Time was refused for the further stages necessary
for its passage into law, and Parliament dissolved in
November 1910.

In the new Parliament Sir George Kemp re-intro-
duced the Bill ; it was nearly the same Bill as that
introduced by Mr. Shackleton ; but it was given a more
general title, leaving it open to amendment. The
second reading of this Bill took place on May 5, 1911,
and secured a majority of 167.

HISTORY OF THE AGITATION IN THE COUNTRY

The first women's suffrage societies were founded in
Manchester, in London, and in Edinburgh in 1867, and
in Bristol and in Birmingham in 1868.

These united to form the National Union of Women's
Suffrage Societies.

This Union has grown into a large and powerful body,

86 WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE

its progress during the last two years being especially
remarkable.

In January 1909 there were 70 affiliated societies ;
in October 1911 there were 305 affiliated societies,
and new societies are formed every week.

Societies of the National Union are now, therefore,
in existence in all parts of Great Britain, and take
an active part in electoral work. The National Union
regards this part of its work as the most important it
has to do, both as propaganda and as a means of bring-
ing pressure to bear upon the Government. Its election
policy is to oppose its enemies and support its friends,
and in carrying out this policy it disregards all parties.

For the purposes of its peaceful propaganda, whether
by public meetings, petitions, or other constitutional
forms of agitation, the N.U.W.S.S. has, during the past
year (1910), alone, raised considerably over 20,000.
More than 100,000 has also been raised for suffrage
work by the Women's Social and Political Union.

PUBLIC MEETINGS AND DEMONSTRATIONS

These have been organised in great numbers. For
example :

In February 1907, 3000 women marched in procession

in London, from Hyde Park to Exeter Hall.
In October 1907, 1500 women marched in procession

through Edinburgh.
In October 1907, 2000 women marched in procession

through Manchester.
In June 1908, 15,000 women marched in procession in

London to the Albert Hall.

In June 1911 more than 40,000 women, representing
all the suffrage societies, walked in a procession
four miles long to the Albert Hall.
Public meetings have been held all over the country
by all the suffrage societies. It is obviously impos-
sible to enumerate them. We content ourselves -with
a rough estimate of meetings held in support of the
" Conciliation Bill." These amount to, at least, 5000

WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE 87

meetings, including a demonstration in Hyde Park,
attended by half a million people, a demonstration
in Trafalgar Square, attended by 10,000 people. Also
six Albert Hall meetings (two in one week), and de-
monstrations held in other cities than London, e.g.,
Manchester (2), Edinburgh, Bristol, Newcastle, Guild-
ford, &c., fec.

These figures include meetings held by the N.tJ.W.S.S.
and other societies ; but leave out of account out-door
meetings held in such numbers as to make even a rough
estimate impossible. During the summer and autumn
of 1910 there were at least two or three hundred every
week.

GROWTH OF THE MOVEMENT OUTSIDE THE N.TJ.W.S.S.

Many other societies have been formed, having
women's suffrage as their sole object. Such are the
National Women's Social and Political Union, the
Men's League for Women's Suffrage, the Women's
Freedom League, the National Industrial and Pro-
fessional Women's Suffrage Society, the New Union,
the New Constitutional Society, the Men's Political
Union, the Church League, the Free Church League,
the League of Catholic Women, the League of the
Society of Friends, the Tax-Resistance League. Be-
sides such groups as the Artists' League, the Suffrage
Atelier, the Actresses' Franchise League, the Society
of Women Graduates, the Women Writers' Suffrage
League, the Younger Suffragists, the Cambridge Uni-
versity Men's League, the London Graduates' Union for
Women's Suffrage, the Gymnastic Teachers' Suffrage
Society, &c., &c.

There is also the Irish Women's Suffrage and Local
Government Association, and an Irish Women's Franchise
League.

Within the political parties there have been formed
the Forward Suffrage Union (within the Women's Liberal
Federation), the Conservative and Unionist Women's
Franchise Association, the People's Suffrage Federation

and

88 WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE

(which demands the suffrage for all adult men
women).

The following organisations have officially identified
themselves with the demand for some measure of
women's suffrage : the London Liberal Federation,
the Women's Liberal Federation, the Welsh Women's
Liberal Federation, the Independent Labour Party,
the Fabian Society.

Other societies have repeatedly petitioned Parliament,
or passed resolutions asking for a measure of women's
suffrage. Among them the National British Women's
Temperance Association (148,000 members), the Scottish
Union of the above (42,000 members), the National
Union of Women Workers (the largest Women's
Union, numbers not exactly known), the International
Council of Women, the Association of Headmistresses,
the Association of University Women Teachers, the
Incorporated Assistant Mistresses in Secondary Schools,
the Society of Registered Nurses, the Nurses' Interna-
tional Congress, the Women's Co-operative Guild (the
only organised body representing the married working-
women of this country).

Resolutions in favour of the " Conciliation Bill " have
been passed by 49 Trades and Labour Councils, and 36
Trades Unions and Federations. Moreover, during the
year between October 1910 and October 1911 more
than 130 Town and other local Councils petitioned
Parliament in favour of women's suffrage ; among
the Town Councils who have done this are those of
Liverpool, Manchester, Sheffield, Birmingham, Leeds,
Bradford, Huddersfield, Brighton, Dover, Edinburgh,
Glasgow, Dundee, Inverness, Dublin, 1 Limerick, Cork,
Cardiff, and Bangor.

It is to be remembered that these bodies represent
women as well as men, as women already possess the
municipal franchise.

1 The Corporation of Dublin authorised the Lord Mayor and
other officers to attend in their robes and present the Dublin
petition in person at the Bar of the House of Commons.

WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE

89

WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE IN OTHER COUNTRIES

The suffrage movement has now become world-wide.
The International Women's Suffrage Alliance, which
meets quadrennially, includes societies in Austria,
Australia, Belgium, Bohemia, Bulgaria, Canada, Den-
mark, Finland, France, Germany, Great Britain,
Hungary, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Russia,
Cape Colony, Natal, Sweden, Switzerland, the United
States.

Women's suffrage was granted in

Wyoming, U.S.A. in 1869

Colorado, U.S.A. 1893

New Zealand . 1893

South Australia 1893

Utah, U.S.A. . 1895

Idaho, U.S.A. . 1896

W. Australia . 1899
The Commonwealth of

Australia , 1902

New South Wales . . in 1902

Tasmania 1903

Queensland . . . . 1905

Finland 1907

Norway 1908

Victoria ,,1909

Washington, U.S.A. . 1910

California, U.S.A.

1911

It will be noticed that all the Australian States have
now granted women's suffrage. That they have done
so proves that they realised its beneficial effects, where
they could actually see it in working as State after
State came into line.

LIST OF BOOKS

The Subjection of Women. By J. S. Mill.

On Liberty. By J. S. Mill.

On Representative Government. By J. S. Mill.

Essays and Dissertations (voL ii.)* By J. S. Mill. Article by Mrs.

Mill on the Enfranchisement of Women.
Letters. By J. S. Mill. Edited by Hugh Elliot.
Record of Women's Suffrage. By Helen Blackburn.
A Handbook for Women. By Helen Blackburn.
Articles on Women's Rights in Encyclopcedia Britannica and in

Chambers' s Encyclopcedia.

The Emancipation of English Women. By W. Lyon Blease.
Questions Relating to Women. By Emily Davies, LL.D.
Women and Labour. By Olive Schreiner.
The Suffragette. By E. Sylvia Pankhurst.

The Status of Women, 1066-1909. By the Misses Wallis Chapman.
Women's Work in Local Government. By Jane E. Brownlow.
The Life of Josephine Butler.
Pioneer Work in Opening the Medical Profession to Women. By

Dr. Elizabeth BlackwelL

Women's Suffrage in Many Lands. By Alice Zimmern.
The Englishwoman. By David Staars.
Tlie Women'' s Franchise Movement in New Zealand. By W. Sidney

Smith.
Le Vote des Femmes. Par Ferdinand Buisson, Depute de la Seine

et President de la Commission du Suffrage UniverseL
Women and Economics. By Charlotte Perkins Gilman.
Common-sense Applied to Women's Suffrage. By Mary Putnam

Jacobi, M.D.

Equal Suffrage. By Helen Sumner, Ph.D.
A Short History of Women's Rights. By Eugene Hecker.
Reports of the International Women's Suffrage Alliance.

90

INDEX .

ACTON, Lord, on political vio-
lence, 66
Adult Suffrage Bill, 1909, 70

1912, 78-82

America, Women's Suffrage in, 89
Amos, Mr. and Mrs. Sheldon, 22
Anderson, Mrs. Garrett, M.D.

See Garrett

Anti-Corn Law League, 13
Anti-slavery movement in
America, 5

Congress, 13

Anti-Suffrage League, the, 46
Anti-Suffrage Review, quoted, 47,

52, 77
Anti-suffragists, arguments of, 14

and the Insurance Bill, 57

and municipal franchise, 50,

51, 52

letter against Conciliation

Bill, 55, 56

movement in United States,

47

protest in Nineteenth Cen-
tury (1889), 46

tactics of, 33, 34, 35, 51-54

Ashton, Miss Margaret, 51
Asquith, Mr., on facilities for
Suffrage Bill, 68, 77, 78

on position of women under

Manhood Suffrage Bill, 78, 80,
81

on women's political ac-
tivity, 32

on Women's Suffrage, 35,

70, 71, 80

Australia, Women's Suffrage in,
35, 40, 42, 43, 59, 89

BANNERMAN, Sir H. Campbell, on

Women's Suffrage, 69
Becker, Miss Lydia, 10, 21

Begg, Mr. FaithfuII, Women's

Suffrage Bill of, 34, 60
Birrell, Mr., on Women's Suffrage,

76

Blackwell, Dr. Elizabeth, 22
Blake, Miss Jex, 22
Bodichon, Mrs., 20, 22
Borthwick, Sir Algernon, 24, 30
Brailsford, Mr. H. N., 73, 85
Bright, Mr. Jacob, 23
Bright, John, on Parliamentary

Reform, 18

on Women's Suffrage, 19

Brougham's Act, Lord, I860, 9
Browning, E. B., Aurora Leigh, 12
Bryce, Rt. Hon. James, 34
Burke on Dissenters' Petition, 54
Butler, Mrs. Josephine, 20, 22

CALTFOBNIA, Women's Suffrage
in, 83, 89

Canvassing, 29, 30

Chorlton v. Lings, case of, 10, 11

Churchill, Lord Randolph, 30

Churchill, Mr. Winston, on mili-
tant tactics, 66, 67

on Women's Suffrage, 72, 75

Clark, Mrs. Helen, 27

Cobbe, Frances Power, 20

Cobden on Women's Suffrage, 13

Conciliation Committee, the, 72,
73, 85

Conciliation Bill (Mr. Shackle-
ton's), 1910, 55, 75, 85

(Sir George Kemp's), 1911,

73-76, 77, 85

Anti Suffragists' protest

against, 55, 56

petitions and resolutions in

favour of, 88

Condorcet, 5

Contagious Diseases Acts, 22

92

INDEX

Corrupt Practices Act, 29, 30
Creighton, Mrs., 44
Crimean War, the, 14
Cromer, Lord, on Women's Suff-
rage, 47
Cromwell, on gains by force, 64

DAVIES, Miss Emily, 20, 21, 22
Demonstrations, public, 76, 86
Despard, Mrs., 63
Disraeli, on Women's Suffrage, 13,

24
Dissenters' Petition, Burke on,

54, 55

Divorce Act, 1857, 15
Dublin, Lord Mayor of, 88>.

ELECTORAL Reform Bill, 1912,

78-82
Elmy, Mrs. Wolstenholme, 22

FAWCETT, The Rt. Hon. H., 20, 62
Finland, Women's Suffrage in, 58,

59, 89
Fisher, Mr., on Women's Suffrage,

42

Five Mile Act, 54
Fry, Mrs. Elizabeth, 6

GARRETT, Miss Elizabeth, 19, 20,

21

Garrison, William Lloyd, 13
General Election, 1910, 72
Gladstone, Mr., on Divorce Bill,

1857, 15

on household suffrage, 25

opposition to Reform Bill,

1884, 27

on women's political ac-
tivity, 32
on Women's Suffrage, 27,

28, 33

Godwin, William, 5
Goschen, Lord, on agricultural

labourers' franchise, 25
Grey, Mrs. William, 22
Grey, Sir Edward, on Women's

Suffrage, 72, 76, 81, 82
Guardianship of Children Act, 22
Gurney, Miss, 22
Rt. Hon. Russell, 22, 23

HALDANE, Lord, on Women's
Suffrage, 69, 75, 76

Hall, Sir John, 37, 38

Harrison, Frederic, on powers of

the elector, 53
HerscheU, Miss Caroline, 12
Hill, Miss Davenport. 20
Household Suffrage, 25, 73, 74, 81
Howard, Mr. G., Adult Suffrage

Bill, 1909, 70

IDDESLEIGH, Lord. See North-
cote

Indian Mutiny, 14

Infants' Custody Act, 12

Insurance Bill, the, 57

Isle of Man, Women's Suffrage
in, 25

JAMES, Lord, on Corrupt Prac-
tices Act, 29, 30

on Women's Suffrage, 49, 50

Jameson, Mrs., 12

KEMP, Sir George, Conciliation
Bill (1911) introduced by, 24,
77, 85

Knight, Anne, 13

LABOTJCHERE, Mr., attitude to

Suffrage Bills, 34
Langton, Lady Anna Gore, 20
Leavitt, Mrs., 37
Lees, Mrs., 51
Lloyd George, Mr., on Women's

Suffrage, 69, 75, 81
Local Government Qualification

of Women's Act, 1907, 49, 50
Lyne, Sir \Villiam, on Women's

Suffrage, 42
Lytton, Earl of, 7 n, 73, 78, 85

MAC DONALD, Mr. Ramsay, 80, 81
M'Laren, Mrs. Duncan, 22
McLaren, Mr. Walter, 26
Manchester Guardian, The, on

Women's Suffrage, 79
Manhood Suffrage Bill, 1912, 78-

82

Markham, Miss Violet, 50, 51
Married Women's Property Act,

22, 23

Martineau, Harriet, 20
Medical profession opened to

women, 22

Militant Societies, the, 58
election policy of, 67

INDEX

Mill, James, on Women's Suffrage,
6, 7, 15

Mill, John Stuart, on enfranchise-
ment of women, 16, 17, 19

and Women's Parliamentary

Petition, 20

Women's Suffrage Amend-
ment Bill, 19, 20, 23

Mill, Mrs. John Stuart, on En-
franchisement of Women, 16, 17

Morley, Viscount, 26, 27, 62

Mott, Lucretia, 14

Mviller, Mrs., 37

Municipal Corporation Act, 1835,
9

Municipal suffrage, 9, 20, 48

Anti-Suffragist support of,

47

NATIONAL Union of Women's
Suffrage Societies, 21, 22, 62, 81,
85

election policy, of 67

protests against militant

tactics, 63

National Women's Liberal Asso-
ciation, 31

New Zealand, Women's Suffrage
in, 35, 36, 37, 89

electoral roll of, 41

Nightingale, Miss Florence, 14, 20
Northcote, Sir Stafford, 24
Norton, Hon. Mrs., 11, 12
Norway, Women's Suffrage in,
51, 59, 89

PANKHUBST, Dr., 10

Pankhurst, Mrs. and Miss, 60

People's Suffrage Federation, 78,
87

Peterloo Massacre, the, 7

Petitions from Town Councils, 55,
88

Pochin, Mrs., 22

Poor Law Guardians, qualifica-
tions of, 50

Primrose League, the, 5, 30

Public meetings and demonstra-
tions, 76, 86

RATHBONE, Miss Eleanor, 51
Reeves, W. P., on Women's

Suffrage, 38
Reform Acts, exclusion of females,

9

Reform Bill, 1832 and 1867, 6, 7, 9

1884, 27-29

1912, 78-82

Rollit, Sir A., Women's Suffrage

Bill (1892) introduced by, 33,

34
Royal Astronomical Society,

women members of, 12
Runciman, Mr., on Women's

Suffrage, 76

SCHOOL Boards, women members
of, 20, 21

Seddon, Mr. Richard, 37

Serjeant Talfourd's Act, 1839, 12

Shackleton, Mr., Conciliation Bill,
1910, 55, 75, 85

Shaw, Dr. Anna, 82

Shaw, Mrs. Bernard, on Reform
Suffrage Bill, 1912, 79

Sheffield Female Political Asso-
ciation, 13

Sherriff, Miss, 22

Sidgwick, Henry, 22

Smith, Mr. Goldwin, 35, 39

Smith, Sydney, on education for
women, 6

Societies, Suffrage, 87

South African War, the, 58, 59, 60

Somerville, Mrs., 12, 20

Stanfield, Sir James, 22

Stanger, Mr., Women's Suffrage
Bill (1908) introduced by, 70

Stanhope, Mrs. Spencer, quoted, 9

Stanton, Elizabeth Cady, 14

Stevenson, Miss Flora, 21

Stuart, Mr. James, 22

Suffrage Societies, 85, 87

Swanwick, Miss, 20

TAYLOR, Mrs. Peter, 20

Test Act, the, 54

Thackeray, in Esmond, on domes-
tic tyranny, 12

Times, The, on Women's Suffrage,
77

Town Councils, petitions from, 85,
88

Town and County Councils Quali-
fication Bill, 50, 61

Trades Union Congress (Aber-
deen) and Women's Suffrage,
29

Twain, Mark, on Women's Suff-
rage, 65

94

UNITED States, Anti - suf

movement in, 47
Women's Suffrage in, 14, 35,

89
University education opened to

women, 22
Unwin, Mrs. Cobden, 27

VOTERS' Petition, the, 1910, 72

WALPOLE, Horace, on Mary

Wollstonecraft, 5
Ward, Mrs. Humphry, on

Women's Suffrage, 35, 44, 50,

51
on Conciliation Bill, 1911,

74
on representation in local

government, 48, 49

political activity of, 56

Webb, Mrs. Sidney, 44
Wheeler, Mrs., on Women's Suff-
rage, 7

Wollstonecraft, Mary, 6, 6
Women, in local government,

49
as members of School

Boards, 21

as municipal voters, 9, 20

as Poor Law Guardians, 50

political activity of, 13, 30,

31, 32, 56, 57

Women's Freedom League, 63
Women's Liberal Federation, 30,

31, 78

and Conciliation Bill, 74

Women's Rights Convention at

Seneca Falls, U.S.A., 14
Women's Social and Political

Union, 60

election policy of, 67

Women's Suffrage, arguments

against, 34
beginnings of, 5

INDEX

Women's Suffrage, Conservative

objections to, 73
not a party question, 23, 73,

82

support of, 24

historical aspect of, 8

in Greater Britain, 34

in Isle of Man, 25

in other countries, 89

in United States, 35, 47, 89

Liberal objections to, 73

support of, 23

pioneers of, 5, 10, 13, 14, 16,

20, 21, 22

political aspect of, 15

position in 1880-1884, 25-

34
position under Reform Bill,

1912, 78-82

recent developments, 69

resolutions and petitions in

favour of, 19, 26, 84, 88

Societies, 21, 22, 85, 87

summary of movement, 84

Women's Suffrage Amendment

(J. S. Mill's), 1867, 23
Women's Suffrage Amendment

Bill (Mr. WoodalTs), 1884, 23,

28, 29
Women's Suffrage BiU, 1870 (Mr.

Jacob Bright's), 23

1892 (Sir A. Rollit's), 33

1897 (Mr. F. Begg's), 34,

60

1908 (Mr. Stanger's), 70

1910 (Mr. Shaekleton's), 55,

75, 85
1911 (Sir G. Kemp's), 77, 85.

See also Summary, p. 84
Woodall, Mr., Suffrage Amend-
ment Bill (1884) introduced by,

28, 29
Wyoming, Women's Suffrage in,

35, 89

Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON <&* Co.
Edinburgh & London

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10

THE PEOPLE'S BOOKS

THE FIRST SIXTY VOLUMES

The volumes now (February 1912) issued are marked with

an asteris^T'TCTu'rTBer^twelve volumes

will be issued in May

SCIENCE

1. Introduction to Science . . .{ Bv J^g- D " WhethMn, M.A.,

2. Embryology The Beginnings of Life By Prof. Gerald Leighton, M.D.

3. Biology-The Science of Life . .{ B * ^Jp^^ 6 ' M ' A "

4. Animal Life . . . . .' .{By Prof.K W/MacBrid., D.Sc.,

5. Botany; The Modern Study of Plants ^ ^; L C ^ St0 ^ D ' Se " Ph ' D "

6. Bacteriology . . . . .{Byw E. arnegie Dickson, M.D.,

7. Geology ....... By the Rev. T. G. Bonney, F.R.S.

8. Evolution ....... By E. S. Goodrich, M. A., F.R.S.

9 . Darwin ....... {ByP^. W. Garstang,M.A.,D.Sc.,

10. Heredity ....... By J. A. S. Watson, B.Sc.

ii. Chemistry of Non-living Things . By Prof. E. C. C. Baly, F.R.S.

12. Organic Chemistry .... By Prof. J. B. Cohen, B.Sc., F.R.S.

13. The Principles of Electricity . . By Norman R. Campbell, M.A.

14. Radiation ..... , By P. Phillips, D.Sc.

.,5. The Science of th. Star, . . ^\^
16. Light, according to Modern Science By P. Phillips, D.Sc.
, 7 . Weather-Science ..... {*W

18. Hypnotism ...... By Alice Hutchison, M.D.

X9> ^Mcfther A M ther>S B k .^ a }By a University Woman.

ao. Youth and Sex Dangers and Safe-/ By Mary Scharlieb,M.D., M.S., and

guards for Boys and Girls . . \ G. E. C. Pritchard, M.A., M.D.
21. Marriage and Motherhood A Wife's /By H. S. Davidson, M.B.,

Handbook ..... \ F.R.C.S.E.

T . . , . /By A. E. Russell, M.A., D.Sc.,

Lord Kelvin . . . , . -\ M.I.E.E.

23. Huxley ....... By Professor G. Leighton, M.D.

24. Sir W. Huggins and Spectroscopicf By E.W. Maunder, F.R.A.S., of the

Astronomy ..... ( Royal Observatory, Greenwich.

PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION

25. The Meaning of Philosophy . . By Prof. A. E.Taylor, M. A., F.B A.
*26. Henri Bergson : The Philosophy of \ g jj \vildon Carr

7 . Psychology . ..... By H. J. Watt, M.A., Ph.D.

-

\f A

THE PEOPLE'S BOOKS

PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION-<c0/z*O

/ By the Rev. Canon Hastings

28. Ethics ... . . .| y da ii, D.Litt., F.B.A.

29. Kant's Philosophy ..... By A. D. Lindsay, M.A.

30. The Teaching of Plato . . . By A. D. Lindsay, M.A.

31 . Buddhism ...... { By P F roT. W.Rhys Davids, M.A.,

-,..... /By H. B. Coxon. Preface, Mgr.

32. Roman Catholicism . . . ( R. H . Benson.

33. The Oxford Movement ... By Wilfrid P. Ward.

34 . The Bible in th. Li*h t of the Higher C *ttl8tBISS5

Criticism ...... | W. H. Bennett, Litt.D., D.D.

35. Cardinal Newman ..... By Wilfrid Meynell.

HISTORY

36. The Growth of Freedom . . By H. W. Nevinson.

37 ' BiS ^ r r C m ^ n Emp e ire Undati n f *'}** *>< F ' * Powicke. M.A.
38. Oliver Cromwell ..... By Hilda Johnstone, M.A.

39. Mary Queen of Scots . . . . By E. O'Neill, M.A.

40. Cecil Rhodes ...... By Ian Colvin.

By Hilary Hardinge.

43. Medieval England .... By E. O'Neill, M.A.

44. The Monarchy and the People . . By W. T. Waugh, M.A.

45. The Industrial Revolution . . . By A. Jones, M.A.

46. Empire and Democracy . . . By G. S. Veitch, M.A.

SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC
47 . Women a S G Suff r age-A m Short History } By ^ G Fawcett> LL>D>

48 ' Th %7Gove n rlm1n?t e o.day ^ SyStem }By Prof. Ramsay Muir, M.A.

49. An Introduction to Economic Science By Prof. H. O. Meredith, M.A.

50. Socialism ....... By F. B. Kirkman, B.A.

LETTERS
51. Shakespeare ...... By Prof. C. H. Herford, Litt.D.

52. Wordsworth ...... By Miss Rosaline Masson.

* 53 ' PUr11A Ch iCe f Ly " CS andB y H - C. O'Neill.

54. Francis Bacon ..... By Prof. A. R. Skemp, M.A.

55. The Brontes ...... By Miss Flora Masson.

56. Carlyle ....... By the Rev. L. MacLean Watt.

*57. Dante ... ... By A. G. Ferrers Howell.

58. Ruskin ....... By A. Blyth Webster, M.A.

59. Common Faults in Writing English By Prof. A. R. Skemp, M.A.

60. A Dictionary of Synonyms . -By Austin K. Gray, B.A.

LONDON : T. C. & E. C. JACK, 67 LONG ACRE, W.C., & EDINBURGH
NEW YORK: THE DODGE PUBLISHING CO.

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